


Aisle 10

by kaguneko (alittlecoco)



Series: Aisle 10 'Verse [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 69, Bad Jokes, Body Worship, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Rimming, The Vets, Toys, also some h/c in that chapter, platonic cuddles, recreational alcohol use, reversible sex roles, self-inflicted orgasm denial, sex in public, soft-core angst in chapter 5, some pretty tame edging, they might have an exhibition kink, thirsty old men, unashamed pda, very lowkey food-play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 16:42:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlecoco/pseuds/kaguneko
Summary: Levi and Erwin manage to get themselves kicked out of numerous public establishments over the course of a particularly hot summer, leaving behind emotionally scarred families and vaguely aroused old women.  Horny Husbands™





	1. Strike One

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw [this](https://zedsdead1001.tumblr.com/post/158408676857/how-many-is-that-now-levi-eight-i-didnt) by zedsdead1001 (who is, in fact, an actual angel and a phenomenal artist, good god) and desperately wanted to write a fic for it. Uh. Here it is? *covers eyes and hits "post"*
> 
> Unbeta'd, oh god.

 

It wasn’t yet mid-June and already the temperatures had set record highs. Erwin watched with sympathetic amusement, ignoring his own sticky discomfort, as Levi utterly wilted that afternoon. It was a lot like watching a disgruntled cat, Erwin thought, as Levi moved from cool surface to cool surface, face scrunched miserably. He eventually wound up sprawled face-down on their couch, feet in Erwin’s lap, with the ancient rotating fan that he’d dragged down from their attic aimed at his limp body.

 

Levi leveled a baleful glare over his shoulder at Erwin, who quickly glanced back down at the book he was reading to hide a smile. He knew what was coming.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said, sounding pained.

  
“Levi,” Erwin returned, mouth tense on a repressed grin as he looked up. Levi’s hair was matted to his forehead in a decidedly disgusting fashion that made Erwin’s fingers itch to brush it back. He put his book aside—finding his husband's feet infinitely more appealing—and wrapped his hands around Levi's sturdy ankles, thumbs sliding in tiny circles over the delicate skin. He was being treated to the rare sight of Levi in gym shorts today, and he barely resisted sliding his hands up the backs of Levi’s legs, under the rucked-up fabric, to rub his thumbs across the crease where Levi's ass met his thighs in a curve that made Erwin's jaw ache to sink into the thick muscles.  He ran his tongue along his teeth, considering Levi's reaction if he pressed his nose to his ass and covered him in love-bites.

  
Levi shifted unhappily. Ah, perhaps the odds weren't in his favor.

 

“Too hot,” Levi grumbled, squirming out of Erwin’s grip. He dragged himself to slump sideways against the back of the couch like being upright was a monumental effort. “We’re out of ice cream,” he declared, expression flat.

  
Erwin’s mouth twitched. “I see,” he said.

  
Levi’s frown intensified.

  
“I distinctly I recall someone eating it out of the carton last night,” Erwin said.  He had, in fact, found Levi sitting on top of their kitchen counter at ten o'clock last night, spoon poised half-way between his open mouth and the carton before Levi blinked and said, " _This isn't what it looks like_."  It was exactly what it looked like.

  
Now Levi stared into the distance and muttered darkly, “That was an oversight. How the hell was I supposed to know we were about to be zapped to the surface of the fucking sun?” He looked back at Erwin, brows drawn together. "There wasn't much left anyways. Have you been sneaking it?" He eyed Erwin's stomach suspiciously.

  
A rumble of laughter bubbled out of Erwin’s chest and he took pity on his dejected husband. “Do you want to go get ice cream, Levi?” he huffed. Levi’s entire being perked up and Erwin bit back another laugh, leaning to press his lips to Levi’s sweat-damp forehead, smoothing his hair back with a broad palm.

 

“Gross,” Levi sniffed, and pushed his face into Erwin’s touch with a barely audible sigh—just a faint wuff of air through his nose—eyes sliding shut, the crease between his eyebrows smoothing.

 

 

And then Levi was herding Erwin out the door in the direction of a local ice cream parlor with that fiery determination he usually reserved for bleaching their bathroom, or for oral sex.

  
“What’s with the rush?” Erwin asked, out of breath, as Levi set off through their neighborhood at a remarkable clip. It was oppressively hot outside, the kind of damp humidity that gave Erwin claustrophobia. Where did all the damn oxygen go?

  
“All the little brats will want ice cream after dinner,” Levi said over his shoulder. Erwin snorted and took a few large strides to fall into step next to him. Levi shot him a look, expression dire. “I’m not waiting in line with all those sticky little shits.”

  
Erwin rolled his eyes. “You _like_ kids,” he insisted.

  
“Not right now,” Levi growled.

 

* * *

  
  
Erwin didn't actually care for sweets much, but he sighed at the coolness of the ice cream slipping down his throat and into his belly, and he’d inhaled his entire cone before Levi could make a dent in his. Erwin heaved another sigh, contentedly full for the time being, and leaned his elbows against the table. They sat sprawled at one of the wooden picnic tables in the seating area behind the ice cream shop.

  
“Did you even taste that?” Levi eyed him with a dry, half-impressed, half-horrified expression.

  
“Taste what?” Erwin grinned, satisfied and lazy.

  
Levi rolled his eyes and went back to daintily licking at his cone. His nose unconsciously wrinkled with pleasure as he systematically kept all the chocolate drips from falling onto his fingers, rotating the cone attentively. “You’re an animal.” The sharp edges of his voice were warm, blurring to something softer than his usual tone.

  
“Are we going to be here all night?” Erwin asked, propping his chin in his hand. Not that he minded. There were a few families at nearby tables and the early evening was filled with pleasant, sun-sleepy chatter. But he liked to get a rise out of Levi, so he prodded, “Should I have brought my book?”

  
True to form, Levi glared at him, though his glares never held much heat these days. “You’re supposed to _enjoy_ treats, Erwin. Not suck them down like a fucking vacuum.” He lapped at his ice cream, once again giving off the impression of a mildly disgruntled cat.

  
“I see,” Erwin said, voice pulling tight with amusement. “Is that what you were doing last night as you plowed through that pint? You sure looked like a vacuum to me. Do you want me to get you a shovel next time so you don't break the spoon?”

  
Levi lowered his cone from his mouth, eyes bright. He had a smear of chocolate on his cheek just above his lips, which were currently tense with the beginnings of a rather wicked grin. Erwin felt his own mouth quirking in response. He twisted and leaned towards Levi, helplessly drawn in.

  
“I’ll show you a vacuum, old man,” he purred, and Erwin wasn’t sure if he wanted to burst into ruckus laughter or shiver with the little roll of heat in his belly.  He swallowed the laugh when he saw the look in Levi's eyes under his thin, raised brows.

  
“That so?” Erwin tipped forward, tongue darting out to lap at the ice cream above Levi's lips. He nosed at Levi's cheekbone with a low hum of contentment.

  
“Gross,” Levi complained, wiping at his cheek as Erwin drew back, but his eyes were smug.

  
“You have some on your nose, too,” Erwin said.

  
“I definitely don’t.”

  
“No, you do. Definitely.” Erwin dipped again to kiss the decidedly clean tip of Levi’s sharp nose, watching his eyes slip unfocused and flutter shut briefly. Erwin nuzzled Levi's nose and nipped at his lips before pulling back, chest thrumming with satisfaction at the faint blush on Levi's cheeks. “Your ice cream is melting,” he pointed out blandly.

  
“You’re a bastard,” Levi shot back, just as mildly. He returned to lapping delicately at the ice cream, tongue scooping up the drips, eyes hovering on Erwin’s mouth. Levi was rarely subtle.

  
And Erwin always took the bait. He leaned in, slotting his mouth like he was going to kiss Levi, but the ice cream was in the way and he swiped his tongue through it in a long stroke, close enough that he could feel Levi’s shuddering exhale.

  
Levi blinked lazily, a little dazed. “You already had one,” he drawled. His pupils were large in his grey eyes though, pleased, and he didn’t pull his cone away.

  
“Yours is better,” Erwin told him, reaching to hold Levi’s jaw steady as he slid his tongue through the ice cream again.

  
Levi’s breath hitched and he opened his mouth, lapping at the ice cream before licking his lips. “Pick a better flavor next time.” Their noses were close enough to bump and brush against each other.  "Stop getting _vanilla_."

  
Erwin stroked his thumb along Levi’s jaw, his other hand coming to hold Levi’s wrist steady between them. He was gone, completely losing track of everything except the bright amusement giving way to dark arousal in Levi’s stare. Fuck, he’d do anything for that look.

  
“No,” he said, hearing his own voice dipping low. Levi shivered faintly and angled his mouth, taking an uncharacteristically large lick of his dessert, eyes challenging and mischievous. The beginnings of a groan rumbled somewhere in the depths of Erwin’s chest and he licked at the ice cream as Levi did, gaze locked on Levi’s, their noses brushing over the top of the melting cone. Erwin’s thighs drew together, squeezing, and he shifted, heat throbbing low in his belly. It was painfully intimate, their tongues close enough to slide together if they wanted—slick and sweet and cold—and Erwin _wanted_.

  
“Oh fuck,” Levi rasped as his tongue flicked against Erwin's, free hand reaching for Erwin’s thigh. His lashes fluttered, but he refused to look away. Erwin's knees were falling open under the table.

  
“M-Mr. Smith?” There was a shy stammer and an embarrassed cough and Erwin pulled away slowly, blinking and licking smears of ice cream from his mouth. Levi’s eyes narrowed peevishly at the interruption.

  
“What?” Erwin rumbled, disoriented, his world unpleasantly expanding beyond Levi’s sharp nose and sharper eyes. And then he realized who was fidgeting unhappily under the little ice cream-stained apron. “Oh. Armin. Hello." He frowned. "Do you work here?” He could practically hear Levi rolling his eyes.

  
His former student shuffled awkwardly, cheeks flaming red. “I—I’m. I’m sorry, we’ve had a few complaints about you…you two…” He covered his face with his hands. “My manager said you have to leave,” Armin blurted, mortified voice muffled.

  
Erwin blinked, brain slowing grinding back into action, and then he barked out a massive, surprised laugh, releasing his hold on Levi’s jaw and wrist. He hadn’t even realized Levi’s face was still cradled in his palm. Several parents glared at them with a mixture of impressed distaste, repressed approval, and fear for their children’s eyes. A two tiny kids blinked owlishly at them, trying to understand this innovative way of eating ice cream. Levi sat back, smug, and returned to licking at his melting cone with prim satisfaction, staring down the other adults.

  
_Oh. Whoops_. “Yeah,” Erwin muttered, rubbing the back of his neck before swinging his legs over the bench and standing with desperate prayer that his hopeful penis toned it down before anyone noticed. He silently cursed the flimsy nature of gym shorts. “Sorry about that.”

  
Levi snorted and Armin’s gaze flickered to the small, dark-haired man with faint terror.

  
“Oh. Have you met my husband, Armin?” Erwin asked, noticing Levi’s ears still turned pink at the title. Erwin felt an effervescent burst of affection.

  
Armin blushed impossibly further, shaking his head slowly, eyes round. “I don’t think so, Mr. Smith.”

  
Levi extricated himself from the picnic table gracefully and stood, several inches shorter than the teen. Armin still cowered, hands twisting in his apron. Levi tilted his head, quietly examining the blond boy.

  
“Levi,” Erwin began, speaking through Armin’s discomfort. After a year of teaching the boy he’d figured out it was best to charge ahead when it came to Armin’s shyness and the boy would catch up in his own time. “This is Armin,” he said gently. He rubbed his hand in slow circles against the small of Levi’s back and said, with a great deal of satisfaction, “Armin, this is my husband. Levi.”

  
Levi nodded sharply to Armin, cheeks faintly pink. “Erwin said you're quite smart,” he acknowledged in his blunt tone, calmly maintain eye-contact with the shy boy. Erwin let his palm slide to Levi's hip, thumb moving in soothing circles, as he realized with rush of pleasure and appreciation that Levi had remembered the boy's name from Erwin's ramblings while he graded papers.

  
Armin’s face had reached maximum blushing capacity. “Really?” he breathed and then caught himself, coughing. “Thank you.”  He ducked his head so his pale bangs flopped into his eyes.

  
Levi shrugged. “Don’t thank me. Or Erwin for that matter. You’re the one with the brains.” He focused on his ice cream again with a dull expression, and Erwin suspected it was to hide his awkwardness. Erwin's heart ached.

  
“Thank you,” the boy stuttered again, flustered and enormously pleased. Then his face twisted in discomfort. “Mr. Smith. Uh. Le-levi. You still have to leave.” Armin looked like he wanted to die.

 

On their way back to the street, Erwin’s gaze caught on a stiff looking couple eyeing him and Levi with obvious distain. They didn’t seem to have any children, so Erwin shot them an exaggerated wink and reached down, giving Levi’s ass an immensely satisfying squeeze. The couple flushed and looked away.

  
Levi didn’t even blink. “You’re an animal,” he said dryly, crunching his cone.

  
Erwin hummed in agreement, pleased with himself. “You were good with Armin,” he said, pressing his lips to the top of Levi’s head.

  
Levi grunted. “Kid looked like he was gonna shit himself.” His voice was gruff and Erwin smiled in his soft hair.

 

A very brief while later, it was Erwin who showed Levi what a thorough vacuuming could be like against the inside of their front door. Levi’s buckling knees seemed distinctly approving of his technique.

 

 


	2. Strike Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're never too old to discover a kink, kids. Or to have grossly schmoopy feelings. Let the schmoop out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some sappy backstory with the porn.
> 
> Warning for gratuitous appreciation of Erwin's boobs. And what glorious boobs they are.
> 
> Maybe don't try this at home, okay?

 

Erwin crowded against Levi’s back, resting his chin against wildly spiked black hair while Levi poured himself tea. Levi was softer in the mornings, sleepy and mussed, and Erwin took shameless advantage of it, kneading his husband’s hips, fingers digging into resilient muscle and warm skin beneath the thin cotton of his teeshirt.

  
Levi twisted out of his grip, mug in hand, slinking to lean against the counter a few feet away. “It’s too hot for that, pervert.” He took a sip of the boiling tea, pointedly ignoring Erwin.

  
Erwin’s mouth twitched. “But it’s not too hot for tea.”

  
“It’s never too hot for tea.” Levi’s tone left the words  _you idiot_ perfectly clear.

  
Erwin pretended to glance out their kitchen window, shifting a few steps closer. “How unfair.”

  
Levi allowed himself to be caged in, sipping placidly from his mug while Erwin pressed his hips to Levi’s stomach, hands resting on either side of the counter beside him, only ducking away when Erwin dipped to mouth at his neck.

  
Erwin huffed, tamping down a grin as Levi slipped into the living room. Reading Levi was an endless game filled with sharp grey eyes, deadpanned humor, and subtly expressive brows. Apparently, Levi was in the mood to be chased.

  
He found his husband perched on the arm of the couch, nose to his phone, lips against the rim of the mug. Erwin crossed the room in a heartbeat and gently pried the mug from Levi’s hands before he could react. He set it on the coffee table, diving to tackle Levi onto the couch before he could run. Levi emitted a wheezing cough to cover a laugh.

  
“You fucker,” he huffed, thumping Erwin’s shoulder as the blond settled his teeth against Levi’s neck with a soft growl. Levi twisted and slithered backwards across the cushions, out of Erwin’s grip, and Erwin had to throw his entire upper body against Levi’s legs, pressing the side of his face against his stomach to keep him from escaping. He grunted at the effort and Levi barked a soft laugh. The sound vibrated against Erwin’s cheek.

  
“What're you doing today?” he murmured, nosing under Levi’s shirt to mouth at his hip bones. Levi squirmed, accomplishing nothing except rubbing his crotch to Erwin’s chest before he flopped back.

  
“Getting crushed to death by a fat old man.” Levi carded his fingers though Erwin’s hair before giving his roots a firm tug.

 

Erwin growled and nipped him hard. “Someday I’m going to let myself go,” he threatened, pausing to dip his tongue into Levi’s navel, enjoying the repressed shiver that travel up muscles of his stomach. “Then I’ll really be fat and old and you’ll still be married to me.”

  
“I’ll divorce you.” Levi rolled his hips.

  
“You won’t.” Erwin pressed more of his weight down so Levi couldn’t even twitch. He glanced up to find the man staring down at him with his lips firmly pressed together against a smile. Erwin flashed him a wolfish grin and returned his attention to Levi’s lower belly, licking and nipping at the soft skin and nosing at his wiry hair.

  
Levi was growing hard against his chest in steady little throbs. “I would,” he insisted, only slightly out of breath. “I’m only with you for your boobs.” He abortively tried to jerk his hips against Erwin’s chest to make a point.

  
Erwin smiled against his shivering stomach, hands sliding up to palm Levi’s sweatpants-clad ass. As always, his teeth ached to bite the plush flesh. “If anything, gaining weight would simply augment my glorious breasts.”

  
Levi coughed out a laugh. “Fuck, Erwin.” He cleared his throat. “Fuck. Don’t call them breasts.”

  
“Tiddies, then.”

  
“No.”

  
“Milk-makers?”

  
“ _Stop!_ ”

  
“One of my students used the phrase ‘snuggle pups.’ I thought that was nice, though the context was admittedly disturbing.”

  
“ _Erwin!_ ”

  
“Fine. But they _are_ glorious.”

  
Levi rolled his eyes so impressively Erwin was worried they’d fall out of his head. “Yeah, you needy piece of shit. Your tits are great.”

  
Erwin pressed his horribly wide grin against Levi’s belly to hide it. “You love them.”

  
“Will you shut the fuck up?” But Levi’s stomach trembled with bitten back laugh. He pushed at Erwin’s forehead to get him to look up. “I have to get ready for class,” he said, eyebrows pulled together with the slightest hint of disappointment. “As much as I’d love to fuck that goddamn _ravine_ between your snuggle pups.” His lips twitched.

  
“Oh.” Erwin planted a final kiss to his stomach with a pleased huff of laughter, and pushed back to rest on his haunches. “I forgot what I’d been saying. What're you up to later?”

  
Levi shifted, wincing when his erection rubbed awkwardly against his sweats. “Class at 11. Another at noon. Then I’m free.”

  
Erwin hummed. “Come to the movies with me this afternoon?” He tried to look beseeching and innocent.

  
Levi lifted an eyebrow. “How romantic,” he drawled. His eyes traveled over Erwin's face with outright suspicion.  "Yeah.  Fine."  

  
Erwin began to dip forward again, unable to stop himself. His forehead met Levi’s outstretched hand, halted before he could reach his lips.

  
“Later,” Levi promised and was across the room, tea in hand, before Erwin could blink.

  
He frowned and looked down at the outline of his sad, sore cock. “Later,” he told it morosely.

 

* * *

 

  
The moment Erwin saw Levi flying up the wall six years ago, all fluid grace and sinewy power, he had wanted him. He didn’t know how he wanted him, whether as a belaying partner, out to coffee, or panting and tangled in his sheets, properly fucked in a way that ensured Levi would never want to leave him. All Erwin knew was that he _wanted_ with a sharp ache that made him grit his teeth. He’d been a rock climbing instructor for _years_ on the side and he’d never seen anyone move like that. It was utterly arresting.

  
He’d approached Levi at the end of his session, after seeing his student off, to ask if the man would ever want to climb with him. His palms sweated and he felt a rush of sympathy for his hormonal, terrified students. Levi raked his eyes over Erwin’s body, leaving Erwin feeling somehow smaller than the tiny man before him, and then turned and walked away with a dismissive, “I don’t need you.” It took everything Erwin had not to follow his dark head towards the locker rooms like a lost puppy. He didn’t even know his name yet.

 

 

The next time Erwin saw Levi, he was slamming a two-hundred pound man to the ground in front of a slack-jawed audience. Erwin paused, looking in through the window to the martial arts training room, eyes catching on a flash of dark hair with a hopeful jolt. His heart had been doing acrobatic flips each time someone small and dark-haired passed him at the gym, only to plummet with disappointment each time it wasn't the incredible climber. But the instructor in the room lifted his head and looked directly at Erwin, eyes fiery and challenging, and Erwin had gone straight to the front desk to enroll in the next series of martial arts classes. He found out his name then. Levi Ackerman. It felt like a victory.

 

 

  
“I don’t need you,” Levi had said again the first time they fucked, after weeks of beating the shit out of each other on the mats, followed by terse conversations over tea and coffee that always left Erwin craving more and more and _more_.

  
“I know. I know you don’t.” He dragged desperate kisses down Levi’s neck, hands curling around his back to steady him. “But isn’t it wonderful to choose someone because you want to? Because you want them?”

  
Levi didn’t answer because his eyes were screwed shut, mouth tight and flat, as he arched into Erwin’s touch. Erwin smoothed his hands up Levi’s shivering ribs. “You can let go, you know.”

  
“No.”

  
“Alright, Levi. Okay. It's okay.”

  
The punched-out sound Levi made—shocked and pleased—as he arched his back, legs shaking around Erwin's shoulders, and pulsed hot into Erwin’s mouth was worth a hundred moans.

 

Levi turned out to be the kind of lover that pursued his goals with such single-minded determination that it left Erwin breathless and reeling, constantly trying to catch up, afraid Levi and all his icy fire would slip through his fingers. Erwin didn’t mind it terribly.

 

He didn’t mind it at all.

 

* * *

 

  
As Erwin watched Levi leave for work that morning—still half-hard and aching and feeling a bit abandoned—he realized six years hadn’t changed a damn thing. Except that now he got to hear Levi's breathy moans and he'd memorized the sound of them.

 

 

  
The movie theatre was fairly empty, being that it was a Saturday afternoon and the public pool they’d driven by on the way was absolutely packed. Erwin enjoyed Levi’s tiny shiver of horror every time they passed the municipal pool. He also enjoyed—more than he should have—the harassed groan Levi made under his breath when he realized what the film was.

  
Erwin hummed with false sympathy and nuzzled his head. “You didn’t ask what it was.”

  
Levi batted him away. “I _trusted_ you,” he muttered.

  
“Please don’t make me watch this alone.”

  
Levi crossed his arms with an intensely displeased expression wrinkling his forehead. The face he made when he was pissed was something Erwin found endlessly endearing. He always managed to look so damn _offended_.

  
“I love you,” Erwin offered.

  
“Fuck your own ass tonight,” Levi growled.

 

" _You_ can fuck my ass tonight," he purred against Levi's hair and the cashier pretended not to hear.

  
Erwin purchased their tickets for the Percy Jackson film and towed a ruffled Levi into the theatre. “I need to know what my kids are thinking when they start school this fall,” he said honestly. The key to reaching them was getting on their level. Half of the kids only thought they hated history because someone once told them it was boring. Hive-mind mentality was a scary thing. Then again, high schoolers in general were terrifying things.

  
“Good for you. Why couldn’t you fucking rent it?” Levi asked, throwing himself down on a seat in the back row next to Erwin. He stripped off the sweatshirt he’d bizarrely insisted on wearing—steadfastly refusing to acknowledge his own sweat-stained misery when they left the house—with a remarkable amount of aggression.

  
“Air-conditioning,” Erwin said, and tipped his head back with a groan. “Fuck, that’s good,” he sighed, cool air blasting his face.

  
Levi grunted and when Erwin looked over at him he was splayed across the seat, eyes closed as the air conditioning ruffled his damp bangs. Erwin smirked.

  
A few more groups of people filed into the darkening theater, drifting closer to the front and leaving the couple to themselves in the back. Erwin thought he recognized two of his students from last year, still attached at the hip. He shuddered, remembering the way they attempted to fuse their faces together at the back of his classroom. Too much. High schoolers were fucking wild.

  
Erwin eyed the sweatshirt again, spread across Levi’s lap. “Why’d you bring that?” he asked, tilting his head back again and closing his eyes. “Are you cold?”

  
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  
Erwin rolled his eyes behind his closed lids. “That’s why I asked.” When Levi didn’t answer, Erwin cracked an eye and looked down at him. Levi peered back up, eyes bright with what Erwin feared was a “plan.” He huffed and leaned over to drop a kiss to Levi’s forehead, burying his nose in soft hair. He smelled good, Erwin thought, absently dragging his lips across Levi’s hairline and inhaling his summer scent. It was always sweeter, brighter, and a bit like the ocean. Erwin hummed, nuzzling Levi’s temple. To his surprise and rousing suspicion, Levi didn’t protest. He just lifted the armrest out of the way, linked their fingers across Erwin’s thigh, and settled with his head resting against Erwin’s right shoulder, looking attentively at the screen. Erwin realized the opening credits were running.

  
He watched Levi’s face a moment longer, the flickering screen turning his eyes pale silver and the shadows on his face deep purple. His cheek was a bit mashed, crinkling where it was pressed against Erwin. His stomach felt heavy and he had a clear flash of a memory, of holding Levi on a blanket in their backyard. It was midmorning several years ago, when Levi had just moved in. The sun was bright and they were stark naked and Erwin just keep muttering over and over that he wanted Levi, wanted him desperately and always and it terrified him because sometimes it was all he could think about and he was too fucking old for this. He was drowning in the way Levi’s skin smelled, all sun-warmed and slick. He didn’t realize he was speaking aloud until Levi bit his lip, hard, and said, mimicking something Erwin had asked him ages ago, “Isn’t it nice, wanting someone, old man?”

  
It was. It was beautiful and terrible and Erwin had understood the pained undertone in Levi's voice. He felt like that again, looking down at the shadows and worry lines and crow’s feet carving maps across Levi’s face, his summer scent carrying the ghost of that morning on the blanket.

  
“Watch the movie. It’s a fucking masterpiece,” Levi said, sounding good-naturedly irritated. “A teenager’s wet dream.”

  
Erwin hummed and glanced at the screen where an impressive CGI scene was flashing by. He briefly tried to figure out which characters were which, hyperaware of the little circles Levi was making with his thumb on the fleshy part of Erwin’s hand. He knew he was acting like a damn teenager on a first date, but his chest throbbed, aching and overfull. Levi released his hand and began to stroke along the sensitive skin on the inside of Erwin’s wrist, still looking straight ahead. The soft touches felt sharp, painful, and Erwin looked down because he couldn't quite believe such a tiny area could feel like so _much_.

  
Levi’s hands were beautiful. Wide palms, sinewy wrists, blunt and scarred fingers with nails kept so short there was hardly any white at the tips. Blue light played across the shifting tendons and heat-swollen veins as Levi dragged his fingertips up Erwin’s arm in steady strokes. Erwin twisted his hand and caught Levi’s fingers, bringing them to his mouth and looking forward with feigned disinterest as he scraped his teeth across the battered knuckles, licking at the ring on Levi's fourth finger. He heard Levi’s breath catch and his head grew heavier on Erwin's shoulder, but Levi still didn’t look away from the screen.

  
Erwin wanted to murmur,  _You're so fucking beautiful_ , but he slipped the tip of Levi’s pliant index finger into his mouth instead to stop the words from falling out. He lapped and nipped his way across each finger, the pads, the knuckles, the webbing, sloppy and wet. He wanted to roll his tongue around inside Levi’s mouth so he took it out on his hand, kissing the tips of his fingers like they'd break. When he sucked the skin between Levi’s thumb and index finger into his mouth and bit down hard, Levi groaned, hips shifting. His head rolled back against the seat and he stared up at Erwin, eyes half-lidded. He pulled his hand from Erwin’s mouth, twining their fingers and bringing their hands down to slip beneath the sweatshirt on his lap, pressing Erwin’s hand to his erection.

  
Erwin felt a brilliant grin crack his face, understanding at once. “You sneaky little shit,” he muttered. There was a violent clashing and some pained shouts echoing from the film and Erwin didn't give a fuck.

  
Levi's eyes were dark and self-satisfied. “ _Shh_ ,” he hissed mockingly, and pressed Erwin’s hand to him harder, rolling his hips up. Erwin had him unzipped and cradled in his grasp in under a minute and they both returned to staring at the screen, completely unseeing and mouths a little slack. Levi was wet and Erwin was going to combust.

  
He rubbed his thumb in slow circles around Levi’s damp head, trying to remain somewhat discrete, but the little huffs of breath Levi shivered out made it hard to care. He was pressing into Erwin’s hand with languid rolls of his hips and Erwin had to shove his mouth against Levi’s to smother the other man's groans, or their groans— _someone_ was letting out delicious sighs of pleasure. He squeezed his way up Levi’s cock with a heavy fist, warm dribbles oozing down his knuckles, and then Levi thrust up so that his hand slipped back down to the base. Again. And again. Painfully slowly. Until Erwin’s own cock dripped sympathetically as Levi fucked his fist, eyes wide and heavy with pupil as he gazed at Erwin in the dark theatre.

  
“Fuck, Levi,” he breathed into Levi’s mouth. “Oh _fu_ _ck_.” Erwin pushed the fact that he might be more than a little into exhibitionism to the back of his hazy mind for later examination. Currently, he was desperately trying not to whip his own dick out in public and crawl on top of his husband.

  
Levi whimpered, eyes rolling a bit, and slid their tongues together in more of an open-mouthed, messy sharing of air than a kiss. His hands clenched in his lap over Erwin’s fist so he could feel himself thrusting beneath the sweatshirt.   _Holy fuck_ , Erwin thought, blearily aware that his own hips rolled helplessly.

  
A light swung over onto them, flashing over Levi’s sweatshirt-covered lap before settling politely on their feet. Erwin jerked back to look up while his hand tightened in surprise around the slick head of Levi’s cock. Levi tensed with a punched-out huff and Erwin realized with equal parts shock and arousal that Levi was pulsing, warm and rhythmic, over his fist. Levi stared straight ahead at the chair in front of him, eyes wide and knuckles white as he came. Erwin squinted up at the security guard, hoping he looked less wildly aroused than he felt, hyperaware of Levi’s lack of breathing and the little jerks of his cock. Of the fact that Levi was having an orgasm in his hand while the security guard stared at them.

  
“ _Gentlemen_ ,” the guard hissed, trying not to disturb the other viewers.

  
A faint whistling exhale escaped Levi’s throat and he twitched in Erwin’s fist, another thick dribble trickling between Erwin’s fingers.

  
“Sirs. You two aren’t subtle.” There was a hint of amusement in the guard’s disapproving tone. “This is a family film, guys. Please.”

  
Levi looked at him, expression dull, and said with remarkable control of his vocal chords, “So if we went to a different theatre, we could continue?”

  
Erwin dropped his face to Levi’s hair to hide his laughter, hand still wrapped around Levi’s softening, sticky cock. “My hand is going to fuse to you,” he breathed.

  
Levi coughed lightly. “This movie is shit. Let’s go.” He looked imperiously at the security guard. “We were finished anyways,” he said.

  
Erwin broke into a deep, rasping, desperate laugh, face buried in Levi’s hair. He took a gasping breath and looked pleadingly at the guard. “We’ll be gone in a minute.”

  
Someone shushed them with a vicious hiss.

  
“Fine. One minute.” The guard turned away to give them privacy.

 

  
  
“That was, historically-speaking, wild as fuck, but it _was_ better than _Wrath of the Titans_ ,” Erwin grumbled as they shuffled into the public restroom.  Well, what he saw of it anyways, which wasn't much. Levi looked like he regretted his choice to cum all over his briefs and Erwin’s erection had flagged, leaving behind aching pain and tacky precum. Levi carried the ruined ball of his sweatshirt, held protectively to his crotch. They were a fine mess.

  
“I’m insulted you paid enough attention to take anything from that shitty movie.”

  
“You’ll have to try harder next time.”

  
“Fuck you. _You_ try harder next time.”

 

 

The security guard came into the bathroom a few minutes later to find Levi seated on the bathroom countertop, legs wrapped around Erwin’s waist, sucking an impressive hickey onto his neck. Erwin’s head rolled forward, falling against Levi’s shoulder, and he let out a guttural moan, toes curling. God-fucking- _dammit_ his cock ached.

  
The security guard covered his eyes with a miserable sigh. “For fuck’s sake,” he groaned. “ _Go home_. I’m begging you.”

  
Erwin turned his head slowly and blinked at the security guard, hands still fisted in Levi’s hair. “We got distracted…” His voice was a low rumble, thick with arousal, and the guard blanched at the sound of it. Erwin smiled shamelessly. “You, sir," he rasped, "deserve a raise.” He nodded appreciatively and scooped Levi up, receiving a shout of protest from both Levi and the guard. He carried Levi past the poor man, managing a clumsy salute on his way down the bathroom hallway.

  
Levi buried his face in his neck and tightened his legs around Erwin’s waist. He thumped Erwin with the ruined sweatshirt. “You know what, fuck your own ass all fucking month.”

  
Erwin set him down gently at the entrance to the bathroom and grinned. “Don’t be like that.”

  
The back of Levi’s neck burned brilliant red as he stalked off towards the exit, apparently more embarrassed about being carried than having an orgasm in front of the guard. Erwin loved him for it. He pictured Levi with flattened ears, a stiff tail, and angry puffed-up fur, and tried not to laugh.

  
Maybe he shouldn’t have been so hard on those two face-fusing students, he thought dimly, following his outrageously indignant husband to their car, tailed by the harassed-looking security guard who apparently didn't believe they were actually leaving.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never actually read or seen anything to do with Percy Jackson for the record, and don't have anything against it...Plz don't hate me lol. I'm all for modern re-tellings of myths (it's a huge weakness of mine, good shit). I just thought it was funny to force the dudes to go see a film involving titans and teenagers. They suffer in every realm apparently, and I have a terrible sense of humor. Sorry @ the babes. At least Levi got a hand-job out of it.
> 
> Eh, also I realize PJ came out in 2010 (where did that time go tho?) Plz extend your disbelief with me for the sake of Levi's peen.
> 
> @ Erwin, sorry doll, next time, I promise.


	3. Omake: What to Expect When You're... (Married to An Asshole)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Levi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Levi wants ice cream, Erwin thinks he's hilarious (meaning Erwin thinks Erwin is hilarious), Armin is a Good Soul, Mikasa co-dependently joins a club, and Eren is...Eren. Notice him, senpai.
> 
>  
> 
> Literally nothing happens in this chapter. Not a thing. Not even porn. I just wanted to love on the kiddos and harass Levi.
> 
> Edit: whoops sorry for the edits; I've gotta learn when to Let It Gooo

 

 

Two weeks after the incident with the ice cream cone, the couple was pushing through the doors of the ice cream parlor again, Erwin with his fingers crossed that the ban hadn’t been permanent, and Levi with a rabid gleam in his eyes.

 

  
They were supposed to have had a thunderstorm that afternoon, promising a break from the humidity. But the afternoon came and went, skies clear and dry. It was hot as the fucking sun and Erwin was certain hell wasn’t dry—it was a tropical nightmare of never-ending sweat and body odor and oxygen levels thinner than the top of Everest. He was ready to fill their tub with ice and crawl into it, but it was Levi who broke first.

  
“I’m going,” he announced from where he knelt with his head buried in their freezer. He pawed through their frozen pizzas and peas and ice packs.

  
Erwin padded over and sank down beside him, leaning against the cabinets. Their tiled floor was cool. Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier? Fuck it felt good. “You’re leaving me,” he said. “The snuggle pups will miss you. What will I tell them?” A chip of ice sailed into his lap.

  
“No, you massive pain-in-the-ass. We need ice cream.” Levi looked up, nose and cheeks rosy from the cold of the freezer.

  
“We have popsicles,” Erwin pointed out helpfully.

  
“ _You_ like popsicles.”

  
Erwin hummed. “This is true.”

  
“I’m going to get ice cream.” Levi closed the freezer, eyeing it with betrayed heartbreak, and stood.

  
Erwin smiled up at him, watching him huff about the kitchen, washing his hands and splashing his face with cold water. “You’re still on that ice cream kick, huh.”

  
“It’s not a kick.”

  
“A craving, then. You’re craving the sweet, creamy goodness. All you had to do was ask, Levi.”

  
Levi stopped in front of him and dragged a hand down his face. Erwin thought it might be to hide a smile. “Were you always this much of a pervert?”

  
Erwin grinned. “I’ve definitely gotten better with age.” He reached for Levi’s hips with the intention of pulling him down onto his lap. The floor was cool and Levi was ruffled and over-heated. It would be a delicious combination. Levi sidestepped him, though.

  
“Erwin. I need ice cream or I’m going to commit murder.” His face was serious, eyes wide and pained beneath his sweaty bangs. “It’s so goddamn _hot_. Why is it so fucking hot?” His fists were clenched at his sides.

  
Several bizarre images flitted through Erwin’s mind—Levi as a spider eating his mate, Levi in prison-orange overalls and—for some reason—a wide-brimmed sun-hat, Levi with a bandana tying back his hair wearing frilly apron and snipping about pregnancy cravings. Erwin shook his head and shuddered. The heat was getting to him. Jesus. “Yeah, fuck. We need to get you ice cream. Right now.” He’d have to put off the ice bath until later; he didn’t want to die.

 

  
And so there they stood, in the blessedly cool, sweet-smelling shop, blinking at the rapid change in lighting. Armin stood behind the counter, smiling shyly at them, and Erwin figured if the boy wasn’t blushing with discomfort, it was fine for them to be there. It was mostly empty anyways. Erwin thought they might be closing soon.

  
“Hi, Mr. Smith,” Armin chirped when they approached, ducking his head so that his bangs fell into his eyes. “Levi.” He seemed enormously uncomfortable referring to Levi by his given name. “You’re back,” he said with a tiny smile.

  
Levi was leaning against the display counter, frosted glass against his stomach, and Erwin half expected him to splay his hands and press his nose to the glass as well. Erwin wrapped his arms around Levi’s waist, gently tugging him close, and grinned at Armin. Levi let himself be pulled with a muted grunt.

 

“Yeah," Erwin said, voice purring with amusement. "Levi’s cravings were pretty bad today. We’re hoping they calm down or he’ll eat us out of house and home before the baby’s born.”

  
Armin blinked. A low rumbling growl came from Levi’s chest. “Erwin,” he warned.

  
Erwin fought with a wide grin and rubbed at Levi’s stomach. “We’re very excited,” he told Armin.

  
Armin looked like he wasn’t sure if he was going to burst into rare laughter or tuck tail and run at the look Levi was leveling up at Erwin as he attempted to pry Erwin’s hands from his belly.

  
Levi glared at Armin, who flinched. “I’m not pregnant.”

  
Armin pressed his hands to his mouth. “I didn’t think you were.” His eyes were crinkling, the blue in them stunning when the boy stopped cowering. Erwin quietly had a massive soft spot for the shy kid and his heart gave a pleased squeeze.

  
“It’s hot,” Levi growled, still wrestling with Erwin’s kneading fingers, grunting a little. “And I wanted a fucking ice cream cone. This—” he paused, finally twisting out of Erwin’s grip with a huff, “this…” he couldn’t seem to come up with a word for Erwin that properly summed up his irritation, so he poked Erwin’s chest and hissed, “You’re a monster.”

  
“Will still you love our child if it’s half-human?”

  
Levi’s nose wrinkled on a mild snarl, eyes narrowed as they fixed on Erwin's wide smile, and he opened his mouth to retort. But then very quiet, musical laughter came from behind the counter and Levi paused, eyes going wide. Levi turned very slowly back to face Armin, like he didn’t want to startle the boy.

  
Armin’s hands flew back up to his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh,” he breathed, voice still bright with giggles.

  
“It’s…fine…” Levi muttered, ears going pink. “Can I order now?” he sighed.

  
Armin cleared his throat and stood straighter. “Of course.”

  
There was a massive clatter from the back and Erwin had a moment to think, with some horror, that he recognized the shouting voice, before a blur of floppy brown hair and tanned skin came skidding out from the back of the shop.

  
“Armin!” barked a loud voice. The boy skidded to a stop and his vibrant eyes caught on Erwin and his husband like a laser. “Mr. Smith!” he shouted.

  
Another person flew out from the back, hair glossy and black, and there was a quiet, “Levi?” before Erwin and Levi said simultaneously:

  
“Eren?”

  
“Mikasa?”

  
Eren stood behind the counter, fidgeting with barely repressed energy, chocolate ice cream smeared across one cheek and something sticky on his forehead, brandishing a broom like a poorly wielded weapon. He straightened, nodding curtly to Erwin in that weird, vaguely military way he had. “Mr. Smith!” he barked again. Mikasa watched with dark, liquid eyes, subdued as ever.

  
Levi was subtly pressing back into Erwin’s chest to escape the loud teenager, bristling. Erwin smiled his most placid smile and said in a low, calm voice. “Eren, Mikasa. It’s good to see you. You work here as well?”

  
Eren nodded. “Armin works here,” he said, like that explained everything.

  
“Eren works here,” Mikasa murmured, which did explain everything.

  
Erwin probably should’ve figured. It was charming, if disturbingly co-dependent. He sighed, letting Levi feel the huge breath in his chest and the exhale vibrating out of his ribs. Levi relaxed despite the fact the Eren was staring at him with undisguised fascination. Eren was about as subtle as Levi, and somehow the boy was as loud as Levi was quiet in his bluntness. It was like catching a momentary glimpse of exploding fireworks and then seeing the after-image in monochromatic starkness behind closed lids. Fascinating. Erwin took another deep breath, pressing into Levi’s back and letting his exhale huff against dark hair.

  
“Mr. Smith!” Eren said.

  
“Yes, Eren?”

  
Eren’s brilliantly colored eyes flashed from Erwin to Levi and back again. He couldn’t seem to figure out how to ask who this man was to his teacher. Erwin fought a smile. Armin watched the whole exchange with his ice cream scoop still in hand in case Levi ever got to actually order what he came for, and Mikasa hovered like a beautiful shadow. Eren glanced back at her.

  
“That’s Levi,” she said quietly, nodding to Eren.

  
“ _Woah_ ,” Eren breathed, looking at Levi with something endearingly akin to hero-worship. Levi stiffened.

  
Erwin cleared his throat. “Eren,” he began.

  
“Yes!” Eren looked at him, eyes bright.

  
“Have you met Mikasa’s instructor?”

  
Eren shook his head, eyes so very wide. It was sort of adorable, Erwin admitted. Like a loud, well-meaning puppy.

  
As far as Erwin was aware, the only time Mikasa went anywhere without either Eren or Armin was when she attending martial arts lessons with Levi a few times a week. Levi once said he thought they were distant cousins of some sort, though neither he nor Mikasa seemed terribly fussed about it. They were, at times, remarkably similar in their quirks and physical traits; they were both lethal and beautiful.

  
Erwin curled his hand around Levi’s waist, thumb stroking subtly through his teeshirt.

  
Levi watched the teenager silently for a moment before stating blandly, “I’m Levi Ackerman. Who are _you_?” He returned the kid's stare with a cool one of his own. God, Erwin loved him.

  
Eren did his bizarre straighten-and-nod and said, “Eren Jaeger, sir!”

  
Levi’s stomach trembled a bit on a laugh. “Good for you,” he said. “Who are you to Mikasa?” Erwin looked at Armin and they exchanged small grins. Levi was perfect.

  
“Her adoptive brother, sir!” Eren’s eyes were so beyond pleased that Erwin half expected him to sprout a tail and begin wagging it frantically.

  
Levi nodded. “I’d say take good care of her, but I think she can take care of you, and Armin, _and_ herself better than you could.”

  
Eren nodded. And then faltered and flushed. “Hey,” he grumbled, brows crinkling.

  
Mikasa blushed and hid a smile. Eren looked at her with baleful jealousy.

  
Levi craned his neck to look up at Erwin. “I just want a goddamn ice cream,” he said, eyes pleading.

  
“I’ll get it,” Eren blurted.

  
Armin gently pushed him aside, showing him the scoops he had ready. “It’s okay. I’ve got it, Eren. Go finish in the back.”

  
“No way,” Eren said, his eyebrows pulling together with indignation. Armin ignored him, kindly somehow, as he did everything.

  
“What would you like, Levi?” he murmured.

  
Levi flashed Erwin a vengeful glare, and then said, “Mint-chip and strawberry, please. Large scoops. Since I’m eating for two.”

  
Erwin tipped his head back and laughed, bright and warm, and Armin cracked a blinding smile. Levi watched with his arms crossed, glare firmly fixed on his pointed face. Eren looked from Erwin to Levi with a remarkable frown, eyes narrowed in confusion.

  
He opened his mouth.

  
“Don’t,” Mikasa cut him off.

  
“But—”

  
“Don’t.”

  
Eren stared at Levi’s stomach. He huffed. “That’s not possible,” he grumbled.

  
Mikasa flicked a bit of ice cream at his face, adding it to the smears already streaking his tan skin. “I said _don’t_ ,” she sighed. “Ask Hanji about it.”

 

Erwin pictured Eren announcing to the sex-ed teacher—an old friend of Erwin's—that his history teacher claimed his husband was pregnant, earnest little face accusing and irritated, and Erwin buried his face in Levi’s hair, a deep laugh rumbling in his throat. Eren was a _trip_. He’d miss the hell out of the kid this coming fall.

  
As they paid, Armin looked up through his hair at Erwin. “I was thinking of joining the debate team this year,” he said, so quietly Erwin had to lean forward to hear him properly. “Are you coaching it again?” He blushed.

  
Erwin nodded. “We could use you,” he said, truthfully; they’d lost some good seniors last year. “Levi’s going to help out.”

  
Levi grunted and licked at his unnecessarily massive cone, slightly mollified by sheer volume of cool ice cream.

  
“ _Oh_ ,” Armin breathed, glancing at Levi with timid excitement. “That’s great.” Erwin kept it to himself how adorable it was that Levi quietly liked Armin as much as Armin shyly liked Levi in return.

  
Eren’s head appeared behind the blond teenager, popping up like a wiggling puppy. Erwin sighed, good-natured, and began the countdown in his head. _One_. Eren looked from Levi to Erwin—still suspicious. _Two_. Eren stared at Armin with bald envy. _Three_. The kid took a deep breath. _Four_ —

  
“I’m joining, too,” he announced, holding his chin high. Levi sighed. _Five_ —

  
“If Eren’s joining, I’m joining,” Mikasa said in her quiet voice. Erwin had yet to get to ten in his countdowns for the trio.

  
“Wonderful,” Erwin beamed. “Isn’t that great, Levi?”

  
The look Levi gave him could break hearts.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ Erwin's peen, sorry love, next time for sure.
> 
> Maybe they should get some central air-conditioning...
> 
> Last edit I swear. Jesus, I'm sorry: FTR in this AU I figured Levi would be the type to keep his own last name. And Erwin keeps his for the sake of teaching, etc. Neither cares because Levi has a hilarious kink in which Erwin lets Levi tie him up, top him, and insists on Erwin calling him "Mr. Smith," a scene that both of them enjoy immensely. Anyways, just a thought.


	4. Strike Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the regularly scheduled peens-no-plot. Shingeki no Nikubou? RIP my soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading is sexy.

 

Erwin tried to tell himself, as he pressed a bruising fist to his mouth, his other hand buried in Levi’s hair, that it was an accident. But it really, really wasn’t. And judging by the look Levi was burning up at him while he purred around his cock, Levi didn’t mean for it to _be_ accident.

  
Erwin groaned, sinking his teeth into his knuckles. The thick scent of old books was comforting and at very much odds with the riotous heat furling up his spine.

  
Levi slipped off of him, sucking hard at his swollen head as he went, and licked his lips. “Quiet,” he rasped, the fucked-out sound of his voice doing nothing to help Erwin regain sanity. “We might actually get arrested this time.” That just made Erwin moan again, a helpless noise that scraped up his throat. He wound his fingers tightly around silky hair the way Levi liked. _Make me feel it, you bastard_ , he’d snapped once, shoving Erwin’s hand through his hair, pushing his head hard into Erwin’s grasp with his teeth bared. _I won’t break_.

  
Levi stared up at him through his lashes and lapped at the head of his cock, suckling at the slit, hands slipping into Erwin’s briefs to roll his sac in his palm, stroking at the delicate, sensitive skin. Erwin tried to breath, struggling to remain silent with each drag of air, and desperately wondered why this was his life now. It was entirely too much to have Levi kneeling before him, gaze unwavering, letting Erwin’s cock rest on his tongue with his mouth open so Erwin could watch himself drip slow and thick across the slick muscle. He distantly heard a whining sound claw out of his chest. Someone could hear him.

  
Erwin was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, convinced he’d married an incubus and would probably be dying soon, in the reference section of the public library of all places.

  
What a way to go.

 

  
  
Erwin’s self-control was shaky at best when it came to Levi. It had been from the moment Levi snubbed him in the climbing gym and turned on his heel. Erwin wanted the man with a bone-deep ache that rarely let up and he’d probably be content to spend his life pressed into Levi, or feeling Levi moving inside of his own body; he didn't mind so long as one was buried deep in the heat of the other. But he also felt his heart skitter to a stop when Levi tossed him a rare, genuine smile that made his crow's feet obvious and his eyes slit shut a bit on either side of his crinkling nose. And so Erwin doggedly chased after those flashes of teeth and funny barking laughs that were always slightly rusty with disuse with breathless skips of his pulse. Every time Levi’s grey eyes lit up with amusement or delight he melted—and, _oh god_ , if Levi was delighted with _him_ , then Erwin was well and truly fucked. On more occasions than he could count over the last six years, that single-minded pursuit had left him scrambling out of dubious situations.

  
While the tension in his pelvis wound tighter and the corners of Levi’s eyes creased, like he was immensely pleased with Erwin’s reactions, Erwin hazily figured today wasn’t an exception.

 

 

He’d left Levi at the circulation desk a half-hour earlier, with his school bag slung over his shoulder. He needed to brush up on citation and debate rules, and Levi had initially seemed happy to search for some new dystopian nightmare to pour over.

  
But as Erwin turned to go, Levi made a tiny sound and grabbed his hand, cool fingers snapping out to wrap around Erwin’s lightning quick, and dragged them off to the side with his mouth set determinedly.  Erwin watched, stunned, while Levi pressed Erwin’s palm to his mouth hard enough to bruise his soft lips. His brows were pulled tight with something like worry for a moment before he closed his eyes and brought Erwin’s hand to the side of his face, butting his cheek against the warm skin.

  
“Levi?” Erwin asked, concerned. He took a step closer, bringing his other palm to cradle Levi’s cheek. He turned them so Levi’s back was to the wall and his own broad shoulders shielded them from library patrons. “What’s wrong.”

  
Levi shook his head, nuzzling slightly into Erwin hands. “Nothing. I had a fucked up dream last night. Shit. It just— I just remembered it for a sec.” He kept his eyes closed as Erwin stroked his thumbs along his cheekbones and bent to press their foreheads together. “It’s nothing,” he said again when Erwin brushed his nose to Levi’s. “I'm being fucking dumb,” he murmured, self-depreciating, against Erwin’s lips. "Sorry." He opened his eyes, still close enough that his lips brushed Erwin’s when he said, “I love you, you overgrown, irritating fuck.” And then he was biting Erwin’s lip and slipping away through the stacks of books, leaving Erwin with an aching mouth and a chest full of worry.

 

Levi had come prowling around the corner of the reference section about three minutes ago looking like he intended to eat Erwin alive, dropping his books unceremoniously by Erwin’s bag and shoving the blond’s chest until he collided with the bookshelf behind him. Erwin let the books he'd been looking at thump to the ground on top of his bag.

  
“Woah, Levi. Hey, easy,” Erwin said, startled, but his hands were already moving to circle Levi’s hips.

  
“Hey,” Levi purred. He bared his teeth on a filthy grin that made Erwin’s heart restart, and pressed his hips forward until he was straddling one of Erwin’s thighs. “Hey,” he said again, rougher, rolling his hips. Levi was already hard in his jeans and hot against Erwin’s body.

  
“Are you alright?” Erwin asked, curling a hand round the back of Levi’s neck, fingers slipping through the short bristles of hair at the base of his skull. Levi’s eyes were a storm, his muscular little frame vibrated like a live wire.

  
“I want you,” Levi said simply, shoving his hands unceremoniously up the back of Erwin’s shirt, scraping blunt nails from his shoulder blades to small of his back. His eyes trailed over Erwin’s throat as the blond swallowed hard. Erwin shuddered and bent to nose rough against Levi’s jaw. “I want you right the fuck now, Erwin.” He squirmed against Erwin's thigh, letting his head fall back.

  
“Shit, Levi.” His lips dragged the words across the vulnerable skin under Levi’s jaw, pressing his tongue to Levi's heartbeat for a moment. “I just need to put these books back. I’m almost done. We can be home in twenty minutes.”

  
“No,” Levi growled, pulling back to stare at Erwin with tight eyes. “I don’t want to wait.” His lips curled up at a corner again and he said, “I want to have you _right now._ Here.” And Erwin was completely and totally fucked.

 

 

  
So there Erwin stood, in the back of the public library, panting and shaking while Levi lapped at his cock like he hadn’t seen it in a hundred years, praying fervently that no one needed a reference book in the next ten minutes. He'd been thinking about having Levi again like this since the incident at the movie theatre. It was so _filthy._  He couldn't stop the fantasies from rolling around in his head. In most of them, though, Levi was the one debauched and moaning against Erwin's palm to muffle his whines. The role reversal had him reeling.

  
“ _Levi_ ,” he groaned when Levi swallowed the thick precum on his tongue with smug pleasure and let his jaw droop open, guiding Erwin back into the wet heat of his mouth. Erwin grabbed the hem of his own shirt with the hand that wasn’t anchored to Levi and yanked it up to stuff the fabric between his teeth, biting down to stifle his hiss and keep the cotton clear of Levi's mouth. Levi groaned his approval, reaching up to scratch his nails back down through the dark blond hair curling over Erwin’s navel.

  
“ _Ah-hah!_ ” Erwin shuddered, hips thrusting forward with a tiny jerk. Levi’s eyes fluttered shut before his gaze snapped back up to Erwin, wicked. He pulled back to rest his teeth against the head of Erwin’s cock, scraping lightly, and Erwin sucked a sharp inhalation. Levi’s hands cradled him, a gentle counterpoint to his teeth.

  
“You taste good,” Levi said, quiet voice slurred as he mouthed Erwin’s cock while he spoke. His lips were slick and Erwin couldn’t catch his breath. “You’re leaking so fucking much,” Levi raised a brow. Erwin’s knees buckled. “You like this,” Levi stated. “You like that we could get caught.” His cock gave a pitiful jerk at the accusation, another thick strand of fluid drooling out the tip. Levi caught it with his tongue.

  
Erwin yanked the shirt out of his mouth to grind out, in a voice so low he hardly recognized it, “ _Levi_. Jesus fucking Christ, I want to come. Let me,” he panted and shuddered and he wondering if Levi could feel the way his hand shook in his hair. “ _Please_. Before someone finds us.”  He thought he might weep if they were interrupted.

  
Levi shivered and sucked at the tip of Erwin's cock, sharp little throbs. “I want you,” he said again, nonsensically. His eyes were cloudy and dark with pupil.

  
“You _have_ me.” Erwin’s hips bucked helplessly, brain on fire.

  
Levi nuzzled his face along Erwin’s cock, leaving a wet trail across his cheek, and Erwin whined low. “It's not enough,” Levi growled, cross, but he opened his jaws and swallowed Erwin down, throat and tongue working in tight squeezes to fit as much as he could into his mouth.

  
And it clicked. Erwin got it. Through his own groan and Levi’s harsh breathing he heard:

 

_Isn’t it nice, to want someone, old man?_

 

_It’s terrible, Levi. Sometimes I think it’ll kill me how much I want you. It’s beautiful._

  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” was all he actually managed aloud because Levi's nose hit his pelvis a moment later, throat constricting around Erwin's cock, and the heat licking at his spine shattered. He came with a hoarse shout that startled Levi’s eyes wide. Levi swallowed frantically, sucking hard, while Erwin shook his way through his orgasm, terrified someone was going to come see what his shout had been for. His heart was a mess of adrenaline.

  
Levi pulled off abruptly and raised his eyebrows at Erwin just as a surprised “Oh!” piped from behind them.

  
Erwin cleared his throat, keeping his back to the poor person who came to check on him. “Did you find what you were looking for?” he attempted, leaning against the bookcase casually, like that was why Levi was crouched on the ground. His voice sounded like it was dragging through molasses and made of gravel. He hurriedly tucked himself back into his jeans while Levi’s shoulders shook with laughter.

  
Levi crinkled his nose on a grin as he mouthed up at Erwin, incredulous, “ _Did you find what you were looking for? Really?_ ” and rolled his eyes. It did sound remarkably like something out of a bad porno, but then again, so did getting blown at the back of the library. Erwin shrugged. He could hardly think straight as it was.

  
“Sir?” came the timid voice from behind him. “Um. Are you okay?”

  
Erwin turned and tried for his most reassuring smile. “I’m great,” he said told the librarian, squinting at their name-tag, and leaning against the shelf again as aftershocks made his legs tremble. His sensitive penis was less than happy being shoved against the cotton of his briefs. He winced and shifted.

  
Levi snorted and rose to stand beside Erwin, apparently thinking crossing his arms and glaring was casual. For Levi, Erwin supposed it was.

  
The librarian looked between the two of them for a moment with massive eyes before breathing a shocked “Oh my,” and spinning to flee.

  
Erwin looked down at himself, for a moment horrifically worried his cock had fallen out of his jeans. Instead, he got an eyeful of his drool-stained, crumpled shirt hem. Nice. He looked over at Levi, who’s eyes were still slitted with swallowed laughter.

  
“Oh fuck, Levi. We have to go.” Levi’s hair stood completely on end and his cheek was streaked with drying precum. A thick white dribble clung to his chin. “ _Now_.”

  
Levi followed his gaze and wiped at his mouth. “Nice,” he said, looking at the slick fluid on his fingers, lips curling slightly. His tongue darted out to clean his hand and Erwin ached for him again. “Do you think she’s calling the cops?” He scrubbed at his cheek.

  
“Security, at least. Good thing you’re a trained martial artist.”

  
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” Levi paused in his meticulous cleaning to glower at Erwin, but his eyes were warm.

  
“You’re sneaky. And if that fails, you can protect me.”  Erwin smiled benevolently down at Levi, who stood nearly an entire foot shorter.

  
Levi leveled a gloriously dead-eyed frown back up at him. “I’d protect you anyways, you big fuck,” he said, voice so dull that Erwin paused before breaking into a warm grin. “Christ, you’re a sap,” Levi grumbled, eyes rolling. “Let’s go before they actually call the cops. Also, my nuts are about to drop off. Fuck. And I need a shower. And bleach.” He glared at the undoubtedly dirty floor and adjusted his jeans before snatching up Erwin’s bag and thrusting it against the blond’s chest. “Leave the books,” he commanded with a sharp bark.

  
“So romantic,” Erwin purred, crowding behind Levi as he dipped between the stacks on his way towards the exit. “Keeping me young.”

  
“You were born old,” Levi snipped, stopping short before they reached the open floor in front of the circulation desk.

  
"That was one of my finest teenage fantasies back there." Erwin palmed Levi's ass and hummed a Frank Sinatra tune.

  
Levi reached back and unerringly pinched his nostrils shut. Erwin coughed. “Good aim,” he sputtered.

  
His husband flashed bared teeth and a lifted brow over his shoulder. “Not really. Have you seen your nose?” But he pressed back to grind the swell of his ass against Erwin before signaling that they were, apparently, to move out quickly. It was absurd. Young, indeed.

  
Erwin laughed, deep and loud and conspicuous, the entire time they hurried towards the library exit. Someone shouted for them, and Erwin laughed harder, breaking into a jog. Levi’s lips were pressed tight against his own smile as they tripped through the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much sap. Wow Jesus.
> 
> You guys have been very sweet with me and I'm infinitely grateful. Seriously. I mean, there really is no plot to this. Not a single shred of plot. It's 100% a coping mechanism and it is endlessly reviving to let Erwin be the dorky old dude I think he could've been if he hadn't, you know, lived in a dystopian nightmare watching his friends get eaten alive for 30+ years... And just let me love on Levi for all eternity, you know? But, uh, yeah I feel a little weird posting nothing but porn...
> 
> Thanks again Zedsdead1001 for that gorgeous drawing. (I'm going to keep thanking you. Over and over ;) )
> 
> Levi POV next time...?? Probably.
> 
> On a side note...I'm still not over Levi's body stats. Ever. How so thick? How thick is too thick?? What.


	5. Extra: Only Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi has a rough day. Erwin is Best Husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who ordered literally 6k+ of painfully intimate love-making and Erwin telling Levi how damn "good" he is? No one...? Anyways, Levi deserves a ten-year break, the kind of soft sex where he doesn't have to lift a finger, and eternal happiness...in my humble opinion. I just wanted to give the man some comfort to go with his hurt for once.
> 
> Angst in this chapter for a hot minute. Sorry. Also it's the most shamelessly self-indulgent thing I've ever written in my Life and I nearly didn't post it. What even IS this? IDEK... 
> 
> **Trigger Warnings (some SPOILERS here): Levi's tragic backstory (vague allusions to the death of his friends-guess whooo-in a car accident a long time ago), mentions of a past injury, and dealing with occasional depressive episodes. It's all pretty mild, I think (especially considering canon SnK), BUT if you don't like that/are triggered by it I totally get it, feel free to skip ahead to the paragraph that starts with "Levi's back arched..." Or skip the whole chapter, as it doesn't really have to do with them getting kicked out of anywhere...
> 
> lmao I say spoilers, but like...all this story contains is sex...

 

Most of the time when Levi looked pissed, he wasn’t. It was a potent combination of being naturally reserved, having a dry sense of humor that came flying in from left field, and a harsh, barking tone that he used to guard himself. He also apparently had what Hanji said the kids called, “a resting bitch-face.” It took Erwin weeks to work this out, but once he did, he was content to let Levi glower his way through life. It was endearing and sort of noble; there was something elegant about Levi’s prickly demeanor and snooty expressions. Granted, he only seemed elegant until he opened his mouth, but Erwin liked that, too.

  
He found it immensely satisfying to watch Levi quietly melt as he grew comfortable with him, snapping less and eventually pushing his face into Erwin’s touch like a stray cat, letting himself be tugged about in Erwin’s playful grip like a doll with a miserable, long-suffering little face. Until one day, Erwin realized with a jolt, Levi was giving it back as good as he got.

  
Sometimes, though, and it wasn’t terribly often anymore, Levi was in a lot more pain than his surly expression belied. The keenness of his grey eyes dulled and his whole expression turned inwards, shoulders curling to make him actually look his tiny height. He was terse, slinking somewhere he wouldn't have to bear the ceaseless chatter of life.

  
The first time it happened, Erwin was lost, hands too large and clumsy. He found Levi sitting in the backyard, face resting on bent knees. It had started to rain, plastering his hair to his cheeks, his shirt to his back, and his skin mottled a ghastly grey-blue. Erwin knelt in the grass at his feet, soaking his knees, heart thumping. His stomach ached with worry. Levi kept his eyes fixed on Erwin’s collarbones while Erwin spoke, refusing to look up.

  
“Levi,” Erwin had begged. “Tell me how to help you. I don’t give a fuck what it is. I’ll do anything.”

  
Levi’s shoulders shivered and rain dripped off his nose. He finally looked up and shrugged a shoulder and whispered simply, “Help.”

 

It wasn’t really an answer, but his eyes were wide and miserable and Erwin had scooped him up, bundling his shaking frame into the bathroom. He stripped Levi and washed his body in warm bathwater so gently he thought his own heart would break. Levi melted, leaning into Erwin’s hands and sighing until Erwin crawled into the tub behind him, curling protectively around his body. He kissed and licked the man until his skin flushed pink. Levi didn’t say much, just whined softly and let Erwin do whatever he pleased, pliant in a way he usually wasn’t.

  
“Sometimes,” Levi said slowly, after Erwin had eaten him out on top of their comforter with long licks and tender nuzzles. The words seemed to cost him a massive effort. “Sometimes I need that.”

  
“Okay.” Erwin said. He could handle that.

 

After the incident, whenever Levi’s thoughts swirled too thick and dark, he’d look at Erwin with his bleak gaze and say, sometimes so quietly Erwin couldn’t hear him, “Help.” The pride it must’ve cost Levi each time he asked for Erwin to take control left Erwin feeling like the ground was falling away beneath his feet.

  
It got easier over time, though, and sometimes Levi let Erwin play his body with tender fingers because they both craved it; Levi to be boneless and unguarded as he rarely was, and Erwin wanting to purr for being able to give Levi exactly what he needed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
The thunderstorm they were due days ago finally crackled through the atmosphere while Levi was teaching an afternoon class. The pressure in the air made his back ache and dull pain throb through his left leg. That it still hurt after so many years fucked him off to no end. He gritted his teeth and exhaled heavily, shoving back his irritation.

  
Unfortunately, it was a class of inexperienced newcomers and during a demonstration one of the students nailed him across the healed fracture in his femur with a sharp kick. In a moment, Levi was launched back over a decade, pinned in the car surrounded by smoke and nauseating pain and his dead friends.

  
The rest of the afternoon passed in breaths, each one difficult to take. Levi could hear himself barking orders and correcting poses, but his head was a fog of hazy grief and self-loathing at the fact that his issues still reared their fuck-ugly heads when he least expected it; he _should’ve_ expected it. His leg fucking ached. Goddammit, he felt old.

  
By the time he pushed through the front door of their house, he was counting those breaths. Rushing inhale, echoing too loud in his own ears, three heartbeats, rough exhale. _One, two, three_. Breath. _One, two, three_. Breath.

  
Erwin lounged on the couch frowning at a book. His sweats fell low on his hips, shirt riding up, and he wore his thick reading glasses. Levi registered vaguely that the man pulled off the “I haven’t left the house or showered in days” look like a fucking champ.

  
Erwin glanced up, tugging off his glasses and shoving a thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes before he tilted his head at Levi. “Hey,” he said, voice slow and warm. He was using that tone he slipped into when Levi looked rough, the one Levi had heard him use with a skittish puppy once. Levi wondered if he knew he did it.

  
Levi didn’t respond; he was too tired. He just stood in the center of the living room with damp hair and a leg that ached as much as his chest.

  
Understanding flickered through Erwin’s gaze and he smiled so gently Levi wanted to snarl. He looked down at Erwin’s bare feet instead.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said, somehow always sounding like saying Levi’s name was the most delightful experience in his goddamn life. It embarrassed Levi as much as it unraveled the knot in his throat.

  
The blond stood and crossed the room. Levi watched his feet approach, tendons and muscles bunching, contracting and stretching, toes splaying. He counted his breaths. It only took one and Erwin was in front of him, toes an inch from Levi’s sock-clad feet.

  
“Let me take care of you,” Erwin said, bending to kiss the crown of his head.

 

Levi nodded, barely, still looking down.

 

“Shower,” Erwin murmured into his hair. “I got a new body wash. You’ll like it.” His hand dipped to rest against the small of Levi’s back, pressing him forward, one step and then a another, until they were in the bathroom. Their dance got easier every time, but Levi instinctually clung onto his self-control until Erwin gently pried it from his grasp. Maybe that was part of it.

  
There were sirens wailing in his head and they wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

  
Levi finally looked up at Erwin as the blond closed the door and paused a few feet from him. The ache in his chest was sharper for the soft way Erwin regarded him. Erwin’s brow creased at his expression.

  
“Levi,” he said again, voice so very warm that Levi wanted to lay down inside of it and rest. He wished the swirling grey haze would recede so he could enjoy the way Erwin’s sweatpants hung so low on his hips that the thick golden hair curling about his cock bloomed out the top of waistband. He sighed, huffing a massive breath through his nostrils, and then Erwin was cradling his jaw, pressing warm lips across his brow and down his nose. The space between his eyes ached. Levi closed his eyes and let his head rest heavy against Erwin’s palm.

  
Erwin kissed his way across his hairline. “I know it hurts,” he murmured, lips dragging against Levi’s skin. “I’m sorry that it hurts, Levi.”

  
He peeled off Levi’s clothes, slow like he enjoyed the process, stopping to lick at the hollow at the base of his neck and then again at the thin skin in the crease where Levi's hips turned into his thighs. Levi’s hands stayed limp at his sides. Erwin didn’t seem to mind.

  
The second time they’d done this, the first time Levi had consciously asked for it, Erwin had murmured as he smoothed broad hands up his sides, “ _Details Levi. Focus on all the little details until your brain doesn’t have any more room for the ugliness and all you can see is what’s happening right in front of you. The present is a hell of a lot better than the past. I promise_.”

  
Levi shivered. Pick a detail. He stared down at the man kneeling at his feet, trying to decipher Erwin’s expression. _Intense_ , he decided. Erwin closed his eyes as he kissed the insides of Levi’s thighs, lashes brushing his cheekbones. His thick eyebrows pulled together in concentration and his nose wrinkled when he pulled his lips back to nip at the swells of flesh, tongue flickering out to slide against Levi’s skin. His rubbed a broad palm in circles against Levi’s old injury. Levi’s breath hitched.

  
He sighed. The gust of air felt good in his throat. “Shower, Erwin,” Levi prompted, gooseflesh erupting down his arms. Erwin smiled against his thigh and looked up, nuzzling his cock where it was slowly, so slowly, stiffening between his legs.

  
“Alright,” Erwin said. But he stopped to fumble in the medicine cabinet for painkillers first.

  
Levi swallowed them dry.

 

 

Levi clung to the present while Erwin slid his soap-slick hands down his back, over the curve of his ass, and along the backs of his thighs. _Peppermint_ , he thought. Erwin had gotten peppermint-scented body wash, fresh and cooling and nothing like charred carseats. Levi took a huge gulp of air. He could breathe easier.

  
“Good,” Erwin murmured from behind him, hands retracing their path, digging into tight muscles, dipping into the creases in his body, then coming up again so his thumbs rubbed slow circles at the back of Levi’s neck. “You’re doing _so_ well, Levi. Look at you. Jesus.”

  
Erwin pulled him back against his chest when he’d rinsed the body wash away, purring hums vibrating against Levi’s back as he slid his hands down over Levi’s chest. Levi let his head roll back to rest against his broad chest. Erwin’s cock was thickening against him, the weight of it delicious.

  
There was peppermint in his nose and Erwin’s rich purr in his ears. The sirens faded into background noise.

  
Erwin dipped his head to lap at Levi’s neck, tongue flicking over water droplets and clean skin. “Look at you,” he said again when Levi let his head loll to give Erwin better access. “Fuck, I can’t believe you let me touch you like this, so open for me.” His hands rubbed down Levi’s chest and stomach over and over, pausing to rub thumbs over his nipples. “So good, Levi. You’re so beautiful.”

  
Levi heard himself moan, embarrassingly breathy and high, but that was one of the rules: he didn’t have to worry about mewling like a pitiful kitten when he handed himself over to Erwin. He could beg, or cry, or scream out his pain and pleasure and Erwin wouldn’t bat a lash.

  
And god, it felt good to moan. The sound slid up his throat, clearing out the painful tightness. He tried another small mewl.

  
“There it is,” Erwin murmured, deep tones warm with approval. He licked Levi’s throat again, hands slipping to rub at the crease between his hips, washing the skin between Levi’s balls and his thighs. “There’s your voice,” he purred. “I missed it.”

  
The feeling of Erwin’s thick fingers fitting into the sensitive space between his thighs made him splay his legs and arch back, eyes sliding shut. He moaned again. Because it felt good. Because Erwin liked it. He wanted Erwin to tell him he was good again.

  
Erwin responded with a rough groan of his own, making Levi’s cock twitch. “Let it out. So _good_ , Levi.”

  
_There_. That’s what Levi wanted. He tossed his head and mewled.

  
“Perfect,” Erwin encouraged, rolling his hips. He pressed his fingers under Levi’s chin, tilting his head up. Levi opened his eyes, glad the spray of the shower was blocked by Erwin’s shoulders. Erwin’s eyes were dark and pleased and crinkled at the corners with painfully tender affection. Levi felt his lips part and a tiny moan slipped out at Erwin’s expression. The blond shuddered against his back.

  
“ _God_ , Levi.”

  
Levi rolled his hips back into Erwin, watching his lips go slack. Levi's nose was filled with peppermint, his ears echoed with purring praise, and he couldn’t look away from the way Erwin gazed down at him.

  
“Erwin,” he said, throat tightening again. “Thank you.”

  
Erwin’s brows pulled together and he swallowed, closing his eyes and ducking to press his face to Levi’s temple. “Of course,” he said, voice thick.

  
His heart beat heavy against Levi’s back, but Levi didn’t try to count the steady thumps. He didn’t want to count them because every thump was another moment gone and he didn’t want time to pass when he was with Erwin. He wanted to guard Erwin’s heart with snarling teeth and claws.

  
“You’re drifting again,” Erwin said.

  
Levi twisted in his arms and pressed his head to Erwin’s heart, listening to the throb under thick, warm muscles, slick with water. The shower was white noise in the background. Levi took a breath, stomach muscles expanding and pressing into Erwin before they contracted. He wrapped his arms around Erwin’s sturdy waist. Erwin hummed and slid an arm around Levi, his other hand cradling Levi’s head to his chest.

  
“Does this help?” he asked, taking a deep breath that moved Levi’s entire body.

  
“Sometimes,” Levi said and Erwin held him for several long moments, his cock still hopeful against Levi’s belly, taking deep, steady breaths and humming out his exhales until the water began to cool.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said. He stepped back and looked at Erwin with his long limbs, open stance, and beautiful eyes. He tilted his head and smiled faintly, watching Erwin’s eyes widen when he did so. He lifted a brow. “Help?”

 

 

  
Levi’s back arched and he dug his heels into the bed with a raw sob as Erwin licked a long strip up the underside of his cock and rubbed the pads of two thick fingers against his insides.

  
“God, Levi,” Erwin groaned, shifting his hips against the bed. “More. Let me hear more.”

  
“ _Erwin_ ,” Levi heard himself sob. His cock dribbled against his stomach while Erwin rubbed steady circles on his prostate. “It’s so _much_. Holy shit.” His breath caught, hitched, and he whined.

  
Erwin let up on the pressure on his prostate, dipping to lick at his stomach, fingers pushing in and curling and pulling out with a heavy drag until Levi’s skin was clean. Then Erwin was searching and rubbing, murmuring placations until he found Levi’s prostate again and resumed his slow, firm circles. He watched Levi closely. Levi was certain he was drooling and that tears rolled down the side of his face.

  
“Ah, fuck,” he groaned, back curving into another arch when Erwin slid down to lick at the stretched-out ring of muscle spread wide around his fingers. He pressed in a third slick finger, making Levi suck in a breath at the pressure. The heat of his tongue was a sharp relief against Levi's sore, twitching rim.

 

“Yeah,” Levi groaned, voice dipping low in his chest. His hands clawed at the covers. “Fuck, that’s good.” His cock ached for friction, but he liked that and Erwin knew it.

  
_Details_. The way Erwin’s blond hair looked in contrast to his dark curls. How suddenly that one tiny part of his body became his entirety when Erwin push into it.  

  
Erwin hummed and lapped a messy trail from his hole to his balls, pausing to mouth at one with a delicacy at odds with the rough push of his fingers. Levi panted and locked eyes with him; the blue of them was painful and the pressure inside his body was unrelenting, the circles against his prostate making him want to scream or piss or fist his own cock until he came.

  
“Do you want to come like this, Levi?” The sound of Erwin’s voice, so deep and rough it was a growl, made Levi jerk his hips and whimper. Erwin’s eyes were earnest, though, despite the heave of his chest. He’d happily bring Levi off like this, with presses and drags of the pads of his fingers.

  
Levi shook his head, staring down at Erwin where he lay between his legs. “No.” He shuddered when Erwin grinned, wolfish and pleased, fingers still deep inside Levi’s body. “No.”

  
Erwin gave a full body shiver and bent to lick and press at Levi’s ass until he whined at each blunt push and was loose enough that Erwin could slip his tongue in with his fingers. He slurred out wet praises against Levi’s twitching skin between each pass of his tongue.

  
“No condom,” Levi gasped, groaning and clenching his stomach muscles when Erwin finally eased his fingers out and wiped his mouth on his forearm. Levi hated the loss every damn time. He squeezed his legs together, bearing his ass down against the bed with a harsh curve to his spine.

  
“Hey. Easy, Levi,” Erwin murmured, rubbing a hand across Levi’s tense stomach muscles while he slicked himself with lube. “Hang on. One sec.” He took hold of Levi’s hips and bent to press kisses to his face. Levi blindly nuzzled his face against Erwin’s. “Almost there. You’re doing so well.” Erwin slid a hand to line himself up, and then there was the blunt head of his cock slipping against Levi’s entrance.

  
“Wait!” Levi gasped. Erwin froze and looked down with a frown. “Go slow,” Levi said. “Go slow.”

  
“Are you sore?” Erwin asked, still pressed against him, eyes large with concern. “Is your leg still hurting?” Levi felt himself flutter and clench against Erwin’s head and it made him want to squirm and groan.

  
“No. I just want it slow.” He meant that he didn’t want it to stop. He felt strange, panicky. Details, moments, time passing. He wanted time to slow the fuck down. He wanted to hold Erwin inside of himself and feel his own heart beating around Erwin’s body. But he wouldn’t say that out loud, so he widened his eyes and hoped Erwin got it.

  
Erwin smiled that damned slow smile that made Levi’s inside burn and melt like he was a sappy little shit. “Okay.” He brought his palm to the side of Levi’s face and Levi shoved his face into the warm skin as Erwin pressed into him.

  
Erwin was vocal during sex. God, he was always so vocal. It made Levi drip.

  
A long, low groan rumbled out of his chest the entirety of the slow press of his cock into Levi’s body. Levi was sure he was whining too, but all he could pay attention to was the way his body was stretching around Erwin and the way Erwin’s full lips fell slack and he tossed his head back unselfconsciously with a guttural, breaking moan.

  
“ _Levi_ ,” he panted, eyes snapping open to look down at Levi when his hips finally pressed against Levi’s ass. Levi shivered and gazed back hazily, body clenching around Erwin, the fullness making it hard to breathe.

  
“Is this good?” Erwin asked. “I am being good for you?” He dipped to nuzzle Levi’s forehead, hips rolling slightly, grinding into Levi’s body. The weight of his stomach pressed down against Levi’s cock and Levi reflexively shoved up against the friction with a sigh. He didn’t know where his voice had gone.

  
“Levi,” Erwin groaned again, brushing his lips to the top of Levi’s head, hips flexing in tiny circles as he said in a rush, “I’m going to move. I’ll go slow. I promise I’ll go so slow, love. But I have to move, you’re so tight. You’re so good, Levi.”

  
_There_. There it was. “Yeah,” Levi panted, rolling his hips back against Erwin’s, squeezing his eyes shut. “Move.” _Tell me I’m good, Erwin. Tell me how good I am for you_.

  
Erwin slid out of his body with another deep, unabashed groan and then they were rolling to meet each other in long slow pushes and pulls that left Levi whining while Erwin kissed and licked at the unintentional tears on his face.

  
“Levi,” he growled between flicks of his tongue and rolling thrusts. “You’re amazing.” His voice hitched when Levi clenched in response to the praise. “I can feel that,” he breathed. He angled his hips so that his cock pressed upwards on his next thrust, making Levi's back bow.

  
“Fuck,” Levi gritted. His cock dripped, aching and neglected. He squirmed. He didn’t want to touch himself yet.

  
“Again?” Erwin said. His eyes were dark and his lips were wet and full. “Let me please you, Levi.”

  
“You _are_ , you fuck,” Levi managed, though it was more punched-out breath than snip as Erwin pulled out and pressed back in, dragging across his prostate again. He curled forward, hitching his legs high on Erwin’s hips, and pressed his head to Erwin’s chest, listening to the rapid thump of his heart. Erwin curled over him and held him close, rocking slowly into his body.

  
“I want to hear you, Levi. I miss your voice.”

  
“I’m right here,” Levi hitched out. Fuck, he was full.

  
“I want more,” Erwin told him. His hands cradled Levi’s head and lower back. He was everywhere. Inside Levi, curling around him, voice purring vibrations through Levi’s bones. He smelled like musky sweat and the peppermint body wash they’d showered with and his heartbeat thumped strong against Levi’s ear. Levi wanted to crawl inside that sound as much as he did Erwin’s voice.

  
Erwin reached down and rubbed his thumb across the slick reddened head of Levi’s cock, making him hiss. “Do you want to come, Levi?” he asked, a bit ragged. “I’m—you’re, you keep clenching and I’m. Close. I’m close, fuck.” His hips stuttered before resuming their slow thrusts.

  
“No!” Levi growled and put his hand on Erwin’s wrist to stop him from pumping his cock. “Not yet.  I want more, too.” He didn’t want it to end. He felt mildly hysterical.

  
Erwin’s breath caught and he paused, freezing inside of Levi.

  
“Fuck,” Levi groaned, squirming his hips against Erwin. His insides throbbed.

  
“ _Ah_ , wait. Levi wait. Fuck.” Erwin reared back and looked down. His eyes were dark with pupil. “ _Wait_ ," he panted. “I’m gonna come. Hang on.” His breaths were wheezing whistles.

  
Levi’s lips parted and his cock drooled while he watched Erwin pant and wrestle for control. He leaned over Levi, weight resting on his hands, twitching inside Levi’s body with his eyes squeezed shut. A few heaving growls climbed out of his throat. Levi reached up and ran a hand along his face. Erwin cracked an eye and offered Levi a shaky grin, turning to kiss his palm.

  
“I have an idea,” he said.

 

 

Levi shook, breathless and whimpering brokenly against Erwin’s shoulders a little while later.

  
Erwin had shifted them, sitting up and pressing Levi upright against the headboard so that he straddled Erwin’s lap with either his chest or the pillows against the headboard to lean against. Erwin pressed into him again and again until they were both at the edge before grasping the base of Levi’s cock and letting him weep against his shoulder while he rubbed his back and they came back down. Then he slicked himself with more lube and began again with rumbling, continuous moans, tossing his head. Levi wanted to stay suspended in this moment, full of Erwin, the feel of his heart pressed to his chest.

  
“Er-win. Er… _Erwin_ ,” Levi hitched, sobbing between syllables of his name. He held the base of his own cock desperately with both hands, head resting drunkenly against Erwin’s neck while Erwin pressed him to the headboard and snapped his hips. He thought he might be crying, but he couldn’t actually open his eyes to find out.

  
“Levi,” Erwin growled back, hoarse, “love.” His forehead rested on the headboard and his arms shook where they were wrapped under Levi’s thighs to hold him up. His chest heaved and shivered. He slowed his hips.

  
Levi whined.

  
“Are you ready to come?” he rasped. His voice was like gravel. It sounded like he was begging.

  
Levi whimpered and nodded reluctantly. Erwin shifted him to hold the back of his head with a hand, fingers sliding up through his hair.

  
“It’s okay, Levi,” he said, tilting his face so that his cheek rested alongside Levi’s. His other hand splayed across the small of Levi’s back, holding him close. Erwin was pressed so deeply inside Levi this way, with his whole weight resting in Erwin’s lap, that his stomach felt uncomfortable. Levi released his own cock with a rush of blood to the tip that nearly made him come, and pressed his palm to his abdomen, his other hand snaking up to curling in Erwin’s hair. He panted.

  
“You’re okay, Levi,” Erwin said again, pulling back to look at him. “Everything’s alright.”

  
Levi smiled faintly when he finally looked at Erwin. These details were his favorites. Erwin’s cheeks were splotchy red, hair wild and sweaty, his already full lips bitten until they swelled. His eyes were bloodshot like he’d been sobbing when Levi had.

  
“You look good,” Levi rasped, reaching to press at his lower lip. It was slick and plush.

  
“You’re a fucking maniac,” Erwin huffed against his finger, hips rolling slightly.

  
Levi nodded. His hand still pressed against his stomach and his rim throbbed around Erwin’s cock with every beat to his heart. He took a shuddering breath— _in, one, two, three, out_. He was alright. “Are you going to let me come, finally?” he asked, lips twitching.

  
Erwin barked a surprised laugh, making his cock jump and Levi whimper. He shoved his lips against Levi’s, licking and nipping, rough.

  
“I love you, you crazy fucking bastard,” he growled at Levi, still laughing breathlessly, and reached to grab his hips, hoisting him and falling back. Levi yelped. He dragged Levi on top of him and then rolling again to press Levi flat on his back against the mattress. His weight was so heavy.

  
“I’m not going to last,” he snarled, grabbing Levi’s wrists in one hand and pinning them above his head, snaking his other hand down to wrap around Levi’s furiously red erection.

  
Levi let out a whimper of relief when Erwin’s hand wrapped around him. “Ah- _hah_ , fuck. _Erwin_.”  Too fast.

  
“You’re not gonna last either.” Erwin swiped his thumb across Levi’s slit and gave a rough thrust of his hips. “C’mon,” he growled, nosing hard at Levi’s jaw and biting the damp skin of his neck. Pleasure was building too quickly in Levi’s belly and cock with each shove of Erwin’s hips and firm pump of his fist.

  
“Don’t wanna stop,” Levi shivered out, dreadfully honest. "I don't—too soon." It wasn't too soon. He was sore and Erwin was ragged, but his stomach rolled with an off-kilter anxiety.

  
Erwin’s motions softened in an instant, his rough, playful attitude falling away. “Oh,” he breathed, “Oh, Levi. Okay.” He kissed his neck and stroked his cock gently, releasing Levi’s wrists. “Love, we can do it again. I promise.” He didn’t laugh at Levi. Maybe he understood what he meant. “Please let go, Levi.”

  
Levi could feel his orgasm building, all heat and winding tension, and he groaned, fighting it off. Not yet. He sobbed out another groan.

  
“There,” Erwin purred, gentle. He watched Levi with an expression that made Levi squirm. “There’s your voice. Come on Levi, let it out. It’s okay.”

  
Levi sobbed out another groan and thrust into Erwin’s fist, hand scrabbling at his shoulders.

  
“Good, Levi. That’s so good. Thrust again, love, let me feel you.” His own hips were faltering and his voice was tight, eyes slipping shut.

  
“ _Ah!_ ” Levi panted. He was going to scream. He didn't want to scream. His hips thrust erratically into Erwin’s fist. His ass was so sore, so full.

  
“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin begged. “I’m—please I can’t hold off much longer, love. I’m trying—” his voice hitched. "I'm trying so hard."

  
Levi was almost there. He bit hard into Erwin’s shoulder.

  
“No, Levi, babe, let me hear you. You sound so gorgeous. Levi, please let it out. Let go.  _Please_.”

  
Levi’s back arched sharp and he did scream when he came. And sob. And shake his way through breathless waves. He hiccuped, trying to stop the noises tearing out of his chest.

  
“Good, Levi. Scream. Oh, _fuck_.” He distantly heard Erwin groan out a deep, wounded sound and his hip stuttered in their rhythm, twitching in little jerks as Levi felt him come. Levi arched his back at the rush of warmth and another desperate wail clawed it’s way out of his throat because he felt so goddamn full of things that he didn’t know what else to do.

  
“Keep going, Levi,” Erwin encourage, dropping his damp forehead onto Levi’s shoulder, harsh breath hot on Levi’s skin. His hips still rocked gently and he squeezed a heavy hand up Levi’s sensitive cock, a few more dribbles of cum rolling over his fist. Levi cried out and twitched. Too sensitive. Erwin pressed up his softening erection again and Levi emitted a pained whine, gasping for air.

  
When Levi finally stopped wanting to scream and Erwin pulled out, looking a bit like he’d been to hell and back, Erwin settled him against the pillows.

  
“I need to shower,” Levi winced, throat raw.  He was sore and leaking and felt like he’d been crying for a year. He sighed at himself.

  
“I’ve got it,” Erwin said. Levi watched him pad out of the room, broad back and ass covered in scratches. He returned a short while later with a bowl full of hot water, a fluffy towel, and a few wash cloths. Proceeded to settle himself between Levi’s legs.

  
“I live here, now,” he announced, pressing a kiss to Levi’s thigh and placing the towel under his hips so he wouldn’t leak onto the covers any more. “I’m not done taking care of you, by the way,” he said at the look on Levi’s face. “I’m still helping. Turn off your brain. Please, I _want_ to do this.”

 

Levi still found it hard to look at him while he gently wiped Levi’s stomach clean, pausing to run his fingers across Levi’s scarred, bunching muscles. “Beautiful,” he said quietly, before carefully picking up Levi’s spent cock and sponging that clean as well with warm swipes, tenderly rolling back the foreskin to reach the sensitive skin underneath with the cooler part of the cloth. When Erwin finished there, he bent, pressing a soft kiss to the head, squeezing his foreskin back into place, and nuzzling it.

 

“I love your cock,” he said with such frankness that it startled a laugh out of Levi.

  
“I daresay the little bastard loves you back,” he snorted. He was sleepy now, languidly resting against the pillows. His eyes were drifting shut by the time Erwin finished with his balls, again stopping to nuzzle and kiss them with that absurd affection.

  
“Do you love my balls, too?” he mumbled, eyes still closed.

  
“Without a doubt.” Erwin pulled some of the elastic, paper-thin skin between his lips. Then he released the skin and rolled Levi’s balls between careful fingers. Fuck, it felt good. Levi groaned and stretched.

  
Wet warmth dragged across his ass, wiping away the sticky cum and laving at his sore rim. “Shit,” he sighed, throwing his arm over his eyes. Erwin laughed quietly, spreading his legs wider and gently sponging him clean. His breath coming in a huff against Levi’s sac was his only warning before Erwin’s tongue was sweeping over his twitching hole in broad strokes.

  
Ah!” Levi startled, yanking his arm off his eyes to squint down at Erwin, who seemed perfectly happy lapping at his ass with sleepy, lidded eyes. “What the fuck?”

  
Erwin paused, gazing up at Levi, resting his head on his thigh. “Levi,” he said, deep voice serious. “I love your asshole.”

  
Levi rolled his eyes and let his head drop back against the pillow so Erwin couldn’t see him fight off a grin. “Shut up.”

  
Erwin nosed his way back down to lick at Levi’s sore rim. It felt so fucking good. Erwin kept his tongue soft and his touch light. “It’s a good asshole,” he purred.

  
“Well, it’s not like there’s much competition.”

  
“That’s not true. There are a lot of assholes in the world.” Erwin’s voice was pulling tight. “You, for example.” He snorted softly against Levi’s thigh like he couldn’t hold back his laughter at his own joke.

  
Levi realized his lips had pulled into a grin, dangerously close to a full-blown smile. “You’re such a fucking dork.”

  
“At least I’m not an asshole.”

  
Levi pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes at himself before saying, “I dunno, Erwin. You know what they say.”

  
Erwin lifted his head with a lopsided grin pulling his lips wide. “What do they say?” His eyes were so bright.

  
“You are what you eat.”

  
Erwin dissolved into peels of rich laugher, shoulders shaking. “You really said it,” he wheezed. “You really fucking said it.” He dove up the bed and pounced on Levi, nuzzling his chest and neck and littering kisses across his face. Levi squirmed and shouted futilely, batting at Erwin’s face.

  
“Who’s a fucking dork now?” Erwin laughed between kisses.

  
“Shut up!” Levi barked, trying to avoid the kisses by craning his neck and dodging. “It’s contagious.”

  
Erwin took hold of his face between both hands and beamed down at him, blue eyes crinkled with the force of his grin. Levi stopped breathing for a moment.

  
“I love you,” Erwin said. Then he was ducking again and nuzzling Levi’s chest like an overgrown cat. “I love you.” He kissed his way down Levi’s stomach. Levi flushed, heat rising to his cheeks.

  
“Erwin,” he warned, but Erwin apparently didn’t give a shit.

  
He paused at Levi’s lower belly and looked up to catch Levi’s eye, point down at the tiny swell of fat over Levi’s muscles just under his navel. It was hardly noticeable, just the standard by-produce of nearing forty and late-night ice cream. Of time passing. “I love this,” Erwin declared, stroking a finger over the flesh. “I want to bite it.”

  
“Oh my god,” Levi groaned, blushing furiously and closing his eyes.

  
“No. Look,” Erwin commanded.

  
Levi shook his head. There was a tiny nip at the skin Erwin had been stroking and he jumped, eyes flying open instinctively.

  
“It’s perfect.”

  
Levi looked at Erwin, at his own body that was scarred in strange places and drooped just the slightest bit where it hadn’t six years ago. Levi realized he liked Erwin’s softness, had for a while, in fact. The muscles underneath were firm as ever, Erwin’s biceps still bunching impressively with every little gesture, but in the intimate places no one except Levi saw—the insides of his thighs, his navel, the rounded muscle where his ass met his legs—he was softer.

  
“Fine,” Levi said. The smile Erwin rewarded him with was heartbreakingly beautiful.

 

 

Erwin was like the goddamn sun, Levi thought as Erwin curled up behind him that night, two of them having finally dragged themselves to the kitchen to eat microwaved pizza stark-naked. Erwin radiated heat and stroked his thigh with tenderness that soothed his aches.

  
Levi oscillated between thinking the man was fully aware of his sway over people, and then again that he had no idea of the little solar system that followed him with blind affection, little constellations of people that couldn’t possibly forget him. Like the way the Jaeger kid had come flying out of the backroom and stared at Erwin like seeing him had made his whole fucking summer. Who looked at a teacher like that? Levi paused. He didn’t know as he hadn’t actually finished school. He mused for a moment and figured that, to be fair, if his teacher was Erwin fucking Smith, he probably would’ve stuck around and panted a hell of a lot worse than little Eren Jaeger. He cut the kid some slack and pressed back into Erwin’s chest.

  
Erwin’s heart beat steady as ever against his body. _One, two, three, four_ …each beat a moment gone. But Levi supposed each heartbeat was also a moment Erwin existed at the same time as him, and he’d walk through hell for that.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Erwin stayed awake until Levi’s breaths evened out, thumb rubbing gentle circles against Levi’s hip. He was exhausted, but he didn’t want to sleep. If he slept, the moment ended.

  
He buried his face in Levi’s hair, inhaling peppermint and sex. It made Erwin’s pelvis ache even as his penis cowered at the thought of another round. His head was still full of Levi’s moans and screams and the way he had draped himself limply over Erwin’s shoulder, seemingly unaware of the fact that he was crying while Erwin fucked up into him until Erwin was sobbing as well.

  
Erwin shivered and curled himself closer around Levi, pressing his lips to his hair. For all the Levi guarded himself, he was the most painfully alive person Erwin had ever met, and Erwin thought he’d give anything to watch Levi tilt his head back, hair slick to his skull, water rolling across his fluttering throat as he cried out, for once not giving a fuck that Erwin could see his heart.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, writing and posting smut is always a bizarre experience. If you made it to the end of this monstrosity... like, thank you? I love you?
> 
> Random notes: I hc Erwin sometimes as being the kind of lover that really gets off on providing for and pleasing his partner. Levi gets off on control, both taking it and giving it; it’s all about trust. Having his guard up all the time must be draining and letting go, trusting someone enough to stop giving a fuck would probably be high on his kink-list. (After, of course, Erwin's boobs.) I guess in both senses, they're both about control, but Erwin’s is more of a warm, thick-muscled gather-you-up-and-firmly-turn-you-to-jelly approach, where as Levi’s is sharp, like he is, either biting and rough or mewling and limp. I think it would work fucking brilliantly chemistry-wise.
> 
> Also... (Please avert your eyes and ignore this), I cannot, for the life of me, stop thinking about Levi actually trying to fuck Erwin's pecs. Like wavering between laughing playfully and it starting as a joke, and then they realize they like it and neither of them can catch their breath. Someone please help me… Erwin’s Boobs Appreciation 2kforever.
> 
> Thank you all for being so ridiculously sweet to me.
> 
>  
> 
> If you think I listen to Saturn by Sleeping At Last and bawl while writing soft eruri smut....THEN you'd be exactly right. RIIIIIIIIIIIIIP me


	6. Strikes Four and Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cat, an old woman, and a very good friend. (Sounds like a Noragami episode...) Alternatively: twice they get caught and literally no one gives a shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments have been so insanely kind and sweet I’m a little beside myself to tell you the truth. It’s…holy shit, I hope I don’t disappoint you guys. This is just meant to be a few one-shot slices of life to go with this gloriously cheeky [drawing](https://zedsdead1001.tumblr.com/post/158408676857/how-many-is-that-now-levi-eight-i-didnt). But now I'm a little in love with this silly world. Anyways, you have my sincerest gratitude and I’ll do my best... (**sweat drops**)
> 
>  
> 
> **Warning for recreational alcohol use amongst adults in this chapter, and tipsy sex.
> 
>  
> 
> Have some meandering, embarrassingly domestic warmth. If it seems like I'm resurrecting my faves for cuddles, it's 'cause I am. (Hello, I love Petra. Oh god.)

 

 

Time passed in that strange, lumbering way summer days had, with watery-bright mornings giving way to afternoons that stretched for a hazy eternity. By the time June rolled into July, Erwin found it hard to imagine he’d ever been cold in his life, just as each winter he was certain summer had forsaken him forever.

  
With Erwin’s increase in free time over summer break, Levi’s decreased drastically. Students came home from college. Middle-aged people spontaneously decided they needed to get fit, to pick up a new hobby. Desperate parents enrolled their grade-school kids in martial arts classes to harness their maelstroms of energy. Financially, their seasonal schedule swap worked brilliantly, but logistically it ate away at Erwin a bit more every year. He took a breath, balled up the feelings, and shoved them in a box in his chest.

  
Mid-July became a patchwork of fleeting, sun-warmed moments that Erwin clung to, storing them for when he had to wake at dawn in the bitter middle of winter, trying to let Levi sleep, nestled under tempting blankets with just his shock of dark hair visible. Though he inevitably padded down to the kitchen with riotous bedhead and a scowl soon after Erwin.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lazy patterns formed, sliding into place accidentally.

  
Erwin blinked awake to an empty bed one morning, flinging out an arm to tug Levi closer, fingers colliding with cool sheets. He found Levi sipping tea in their garden wearing just his briefs, steam coiling into the air between fingers splayed over the rim of the mug. He tilted his face into the clear sunlight, unaware of Erwin’s gaze. For once the shadows under his eyes weren’t so livid.

  
Erwin slipped out the door and wrapped his arms around Levi’s waist, tugging him down into one of their patio chairs. Levi huffed protest, but settled himself sideways across Erwin’s lap so his back rested in the curve of Erwin’s arm and his legs were thrown over the arm of the chair. The morning smelled like Earl Grey and Levi’s sleep-sweat scent and the damp of the grass.

  
That became their new mornings. Sometimes Erwin woke, reaching for a body that wasn’t there when Levi had slept poorly, finding him already in the garden. Other mornings Levi nosed him awake and they ate from the same plate, limbs tangled as they tried to fit into the protesting garden chair. Rarely, Erwin got to kiss Levi awake and watch his eyes blink open, bleary, face scrunching. Or he’d slide down the bed and take Levi in his mouth, feeling him throb to fullness against his tongue and wait for Levi’s breath to catch and a soft moan to let him know Levi was awake.

 

  
Erwin eventually noticed a neighborhood cat stopping by their garden on its rounds.  A tabby with a torn ear and a nasty scar across one yellowish eye. At first it merely glared at them where they sat, two to a chair, on its way through. But a week passed and it crept closer to sun itself next to Levi when Erwin isn’t holding him hostage, meowing at the man with the croak of a chain-smoker. Erwin caught Levi setting out a cup of water and scraps of chicken for the creature and had to smother a grin. Another week slid by and he came home from a climbing lesson to Levi laying on the couch with the rather dirty cat purring on his chest, paws kneading. It had a flea collar around its neck, the open package for which was on the coffee table.

  
“Not a word,” Levi said, staring pointedly at the television. But he didn't remove his hand from where he stroked along the blissed-out animal’s spine.

  
“So…have you named our new child, yet? We’ll have to tell Eren you managed it after all.”

  
“I said not a fucking word, Erwin.”

  
Erwin wanted to bathe the cat, but Levi refused to force the animal to stay in the house, letting it come and go as it pleased, so there wasn’t much point. Levi wouldn’t call it anything other than “Cat,” speaking to it as bluntly as he spoke to humans, and that was that. Sometimes they had a cat, sometimes they didn’t. But at least Erwin finally found an exception to Levi’s rules of cleanliness.

 

 

Levi himself came and went like the scrappy cat, leaving to teach his classes, sometimes for eight-hour days, others for just a class here or there, ghosting back into the house like he’d never left. He hadn’t had a low day since his breakdown during the storm, but Erwin caught his grimace from time to time when he regarded the massive scar up his left thigh and made sure to lick and kiss Levi from his knee to his hips when they went to bed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
The heat was a funny thing. It turned Levi to pliant mush, constantly seeking out cool things to eat or to lay on, while it gave Erwin’s tired bones energy like he was a damn plant photosynthesizing.

  
Levi had gotten into the habit of dragging Erwin for ice cream when he got home from teaching. Levi was as much a snob about his sweets as he was his tea.  But while the ice cream a few blocks over was admittedly good, Erwin wondered if Levi actually _liked_ seeing his former students, as it was just as easy for them to keep ice cream in their freezer.

  
Levi scoffed and claimed it was for his waistline, that he shouldn’t eat pints at midnight anymore and Erwin's ass could use the exercise, turning his face away quickly. But he was subtly more animated with Mikasa than Erwin had seen him with anyone outside of their immediate circle of friends. Watching Levi navigate conversations with Armin and cringe away from Eren’s outright hero-worship was such a pleasure that Erwin let his wallet take the hit.

  
They meandered there in late afternoons more often than not, strolling through the heady summer nights, pausing when Erwin would grab Levi’s arm to tug him into sloppy, open-mouthed kisses as hot as the air around them because there was something about seeing Levi relaxed that made him want to weep. So he kissed him instead and squeezed his eyes tight, listening to the cicadas and neighborhood dogs and the sound of Levi’s breath hitching.

  
Sometimes Erwin brought his old lesson plans on their excursions and leaned against the counter, asking Armin to weigh in on how well they had worked, leaving the shy blond flushed with embarrassed pleasure at having his opinion valued. It was utterly adorable and Erwin considered pointing out that he wasn’t flattering Armin; the kid was brilliant and Erwin genuinely thought he could help. But the boy looked up at him with glassy, excited blue eyes and his voice usually died, lips giving way to a gentle smile before moving on to his next question.

  
At first Levi remained pressed to his side, all watchful eyes and stoney silence. But little by little he spoke to Armin, cutting in to offer a comment here or there, until one day Levi’s warm weight was missing from Erwin’s side. He found his husband sitting around back at one of those wooden picnic tables. Erwin stayed by the doorway watching for a while as Levi spoke with Mikasa in between the most absent-minded licks of ice cream the man had ever taken. Eren had parked himself at the table, hanging off of their words with enormous eyes and a stick-straight back. He was being silent for once in his life and Erwin’s chest felt heavy with something bittersweet.

 

  
And so sometimes the days slid by and a week passed before Erwin even noticed that a day had ended. Other hours replayed in his memory like sunspots on the insides of his lids.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first time it happened, it began with stress and headaches.

  
Erwin was hunched over their kitchen table going through audits of his performance last year. They’d been pretty good, overall—more than pretty good, frankly. He was hoping they’d be the tipping point to getting funding for more school trips this coming year. His kids tended to hang onto things they could touch and see for themselves, but getting funding from a public school was a never-ending battle. Chaperones, buses, tickets; it was a fucking nightmare. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair, wincing when the movement shot pain across the base of his tense neck.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said from the living room, just loud enough to be a command. Their sometimes-cat yowled in response to Levi’s raised voice.

  
“No, Cat,” Erwin heard him mutter, tone gentle. “We use our inside voices when we’re inside, don’t be a fucking idiot.” There as a pause and some muttering from both the cat and the human. “Erwin.” Levi wasn’t using much of an inside voice, himself.

  
Erwin dragged a hand down his face and stood, lower back aching from bending over budgets and lesson plans and half-formed arguments for why it was _imperative_ to take the kids on a trip to Washington, D.C.

  
He padded into the living room and snorted. Levi was reading something, book held over his head, as he sprawled on their couch with his legs elevated on the arm rest. The cat was curled up around his head, still murmuring cat-noises, apparently displeased with the lack of attention Levi was giving it.

  
“Comfortable?” Erwin asked.

  
Levi ignored his question, and settled the book on his stomach. His lips curved faintly. “Working too hard?” he said, but it was a drawled statement, not a question. And then, “Catch.”

  
Erwin had half a second to understand before Levi was pulling something out of his pant’s pocket and sending it sailing into Erwin’s fumbling hands. He frowned, looked at the thing he’d barely caught, and snorted a startled laugh. When he glanced up Levi was looking at him with amused brows and a hint of a smirk.

  
“Well?” Levi said, playing bored.

  
Erwin had caught a little bottle of lube. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  
“Anything you want.” He shrugged, grey eyes bright.  He made a pillow of his arms behind his head. “Let me know if you can’t figure it out.”

  
Erwin let the things he’d been stressing over fall away in the space of a heartbeat, shoving them into that box in his chest, and grabbed for this opportunity with desperate fingers.  He was terribly aware that during the school year he couldn’t always do this; Levi never pushed it. “Don’t move,” he told Levi, beelining for their bathroom, stripping off his shirt as he took the stairs two at a time. He caught a quiet huff of laughter behind him.

  
Of course Levi hadn’t stayed put while Erwin washed and fingered himself open, bearing down hard on his own hand, letting the stretch obliterate his thoughts of anything except the anticipation of being full of Levi.

  
“Levi,” he called when he was loose and aching, hearing his own deep rumble. He vaguely hoped the cat didn’t see him wandering through the house with a bobbing red cock and slicked ass, bottle of lube clenched tight in his fist.

  
He found Levi in their yard, laying on his stomach on that damned blanket, stretched naked in a sunbeam. He rolled onto his back, when Erwin approached, half hard, eyes lingering on the light catching the wet shine between Erwin's thighs and said, pleased, “Oh, I guess you figured it out. Good for you.”

  
Erwin glanced around the yard with its tall, morning-glory covered fences and high bushes.  He figured if someone was trying hard enough to peak in, the eyeful they got was their own fault.

  
“You’re a cheeky little shit,” he said, straddling Levi and ducking to bite his throat with a sharp nip. The sun was warm on his back, soothing his sore neck.

  
“You work too hard,” Levi returned, calm, tilting head to the side for Erwin to mouth at his pulse and slowly slicking himself with the lube Erwin tossed onto the blanket.

  
Erwin huffed, pushed aside the twist of his heart. “Yeah,” he agreed. He lowered himself onto Levi slowly, etching snapshots into his mind as he tried to keep his eyes open. Of Levi’s back bowing with a cut-off groan and the way the sun turned his irises silver.  How it felt when Levi moved inside of him.

  
Levi had him again that evening while the setting sun turned their bedroom golden.

 

 

Their neighbor was out the next morning when Erwin meandered to fetch their paper, cradling a mug of coffee. He was sore and lazy, slow in the way he always was after Levi fucked him. He suspected Levi knew that, intended it, as he’d looked over at Erwin’s slack expression that morning with sleepy self-satisfaction.

  
“Good morning, doll,” his neighbor called from the porch in her wavering, familiar voice.

  
Erwin waved and nodded. “Morning, Inga.” He made a mental note to tell Levi they should bring her dinner soon. Her husband had passed away a few years back and she always seemed glad of the company, though she hid it behind sass and brave snips. She and Levi got on like a house on fire. It was _terrifying_.

  
She beckoned Erwin over, surprisingly sharp eyes sliding over his bathrobe as he approached. “Are you enjoying your summer vacation, Erwin?” she asked when he drew near enough to lean against the railing of the stairs leading up to her porch. She stared down at him from her chair, clad in her own lavender bathrobe, silvery hair long and braided. She looked like an ancient queen.

  
“I am, thanks for asking. What about yourself?”

  
Inga smiled at him. “Oh, most certainly,” she said, with a great deal of relish.

  
Erwin coughed and frowned. He was missing a joke. “Shall Levi and I come by tonight for dinner?” he asked, fumbling mentally for the unspoken punchline.

  
“Oh no, doll. I just wanted to say hello. I’m having some girlfriends over today for tea. A little afternoon delight.” She winked and Erwin blanched.

 

 

“Levi,” he blurted when he found his husband in the kitchen. Levi looked up from the stove for a moment to eye Erwin’s exposed bit of chest before turning back to the frying pan. “I think Inga’s seen us.” At Levi’s lack of reaction, he elaborated, “Indulging in some afternoon delight. Making a beast with two backs. Doing the whoopy…”

  
“Oh yeah,” Levi agreed, scrambling the eggs. “For years.” He seemed more disturbed by Erwin’s terminology than the fact that their elderly neighbor was a peeping tom, albeit an adorable one. “Please stop trying to use slang. It’s ‘making whoopy,’ you fuck.”

  
Erwin ignored him, already shifting through more colorful phrases, but a sudden thought flared through his mind. The binoculars… “She doesn’t go bird watching, does she?”

  
“No.” Levi glanced up. “Could you grab a plate? Her husband used to, I think.”

  
Erwin got one down from the cabinet Levi couldn’t reach and asked, “You don’t mind?”

  
“She’s like eighty, Erwin. If it makes her happy, I couldn’t give two shits. I don't think she spies, though. You're not exactly quiet. She probably thought you were dying and got an eyeful.” He shrugged. "At least Inga didn't call an ambulance for you."

  
Erwin tried to care, to feel some amount of embarrassment for himself or Levi—a vivid memory of riding Levi with complete abandon in their backyard yesterday flitted through his brain—but he just couldn’t drudge up the energy.  Apparently she'd seen it all anyways, probably a dozen times over. “Same,” he said slowly. "About not giving two shits. Am I that loud?"

  
Levi looked at him like he was joking and rolled his eyes. “That’s good,” Levi had piled eggs on their plate alongside slices of toast and handed it over with a smirk. “Takes you long enough to give one shit.”

  
Erwin rolled his eyes. “Are you ever going to let that go?”

  
“Definitely not.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
The second time, they were tipsy and fumbling.

  
Levi drunk was a fascinating, rare phenomenon. He didn’t usually become chatty, per say; apparently his walls were too high for that. He just kind of subtly radiated warm contentment, like a purring cat, and his mouth was softer. His whole being was softer, in fact, the sharp edges smoothed by the buzz of alcohol. And he was a great deal more tolerant of touch, allowing Hanji to throw an arm around his neck without making a face. With Erwin, he was downright clingy. But it was all with the quiet intensity he did every thing else.

  
Erwin wasn’t much better off. They’d gone to Hanji’s for a barbecue after they got out of work the Saturday after Inga had all but told Erwin she enjoyed watching him ride Levi into the sunset. Neither he nor Levi had to work on Sunday, and while a large part of Erwin didn’t want to leave their bedroom or tub for the next twenty-four hours, he missed Hanji.

  
As it turned out, Hanji had invited the entire Sina High crew to their house.

 

 

Levi crawled into Erwin’s lap as the sun was setting across Hanji’s back deck, expression completely casual like he always acted this way, and wrapped Erwin’s arms around his waist. “Cold,” he muttered, and returned to conversing with Petra Ral, Sina's ninth grade English teacher, about the importance of curse words. Petra cooed over Levi’s behavior for a moment, receiving a bland “fuck off,” and picked up where she’d left off, pretty complexion flushed red to match her hair. As they both seemed vehemently in favor of well-placed curses in literature, Erwin wasn’t sure they were doing anything other than spouting their favorite colorful phrases.

  
He heaved a sigh against Levi’s back, full and warm and teetering on the edge of tipsy and full-blown drunk. The weight of Levi in his lap was a comfort.

  
Hanji thumped down next to him, yanking their chair close enough to rest their head on Erwin’s shoulder. Levi cast them a look from his perch in Erwin’s lap and said, “Hey shitface,” before settling more firmly against Erwin’s chest, apparently done speaking with Petra.

  
“Hey asswipe,” Hanji grinned, delighted.

  
Levi had been passing a beer between the two of them and he craned his neck to look at Erwin, silently offering another sip, which Erwin took after stealing a kiss.

  
Erwin looked down at Hanji to see if they wanted to chat, but the sex-ed teacher seemed perfectly content to lean on his shoulder and observe for once. Their porch was a clutter of tables and plates and tangled limbs of friends fitting into not enough chairs, loud with music and chatter. There was a shriek and a laugh as Rico tugged Petra to her feet and swing her in a rather dirty waltz across the deck. Petra dipped her head back, bright hair fluttering while Rico wrinkled her little nose on a laugh, usually so hard-won. Erwin heaved another sigh against Levi’s back, fingers playing across his ribs, and bent to press his lips to Hanji’s riot of hair.

  
“Thanks,” he murmured.

  
Levi demanded his own kiss after that, shooting Hanji mild glare and ruffling their hair. Levi pressed his lips to the beer bottle to hide a smile when Hanji retaliated by rubbing their head against his chest.

 

They spent the night on the pullout couch in Hanji’s living room. Hanji’s guest room was the usual pile of Mike and Nanaba and Rico, and Erwin assumed Petra and Mob had wound up in Hanji’s bed as they always seemed to. Last he saw of Petra, she was blushing as Hanji carried her up the stairs, trailed by an equally flustered Moblit. Though it wasn’t a guarantee that Rico wouldn’t wind up in Hanji’s bed, as well.

  
Erwin flopped onto his back, huffing an exhale. It felt good in his lungs so he sighed another, slower, and his chest ached with something so soft it was hard to hold. 

  
“Are you dying on me, old man?” Levi asked, crawling onto his chest, bare legs straddling his waist. His eyes were wide and luminous in the moonlight, and he stared down at Erwin with an intense frown.

  
“Nah, just feels nice.” He took another breath, watching Levi rise and fall with it.

  
“Good.” Levi reached out and ran a finger across one of Erwin’s eyebrows and then the other. “I’m drunk,” he informed Erwin, tracing down his nose. Erwin smiled and closed his eyes. Levi’s fingertips tickled pleasantly, his weight grounding.

  
“You don’t say.”

  
“I just did.”

  
Erwin tipped his face up until Levi’s finger ghosted his lips, tracing the outline of them.

  
“You are, too. You always breathe like this when you're drunk. Fucking weird.”

  
Erwin opened his eyes and reached to wrap his hands around Levi’s waist under his shirt, clumsy. “Yeah. So treat me like the delicate princess I am, ‘kay?”

  
“You’re no such thing.” Levi continued to trace his fingers across Erwin’s face, along his jaw, then down along his neck to glide over his Adam’s apple with drunken attention. He pressed his palms to Erwin’s chest. “You’re not delicate,” he insisted, glaring like it was extremely important.

  
Erwin frowned. “Okay,” he agreed slowly.

  
Levi seemed mollified and gave his chest a rough squeeze, unguarded expression full of satisfaction with the give of Erwin’s muscles. Erwin could sympathize, thinking of the way his fingers felt sinking into Levi’s ass. Levi shifted against his hips, reaching for the hem of Erwin’s shirt. Erwin was as caught up in watching the play of emotions across Levi’s face as Levi was focused on getting him undressed, so he pliantly let Levi tug his shirt up over his head, leaving him in his briefs.

  
And then Levi was back to work, tracing his collarbones and the tops of his shoulders, his fingers sending little shivers of pleasure down Erwin’s spine.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said, placing his palms over Erwin chest, leaning his weight on them so he could loom over Erwin’s face.

  
“Yes.”

  
“Keep these.” He grabbed two palmfuls and shoved them together, watching, fascinated, as he created cleavage out of the muscles.

  
Erwin groaned and laughed and arched his back into Levi’s hands all in one hideous motion. “Yeah, they aren’t going anywhere,” he managed. His head was spinning slightly, the sheets so damn soft against his bare back, and he thought maybe it was weird that Levi was palming his chest like they were breasts, or maybe it was weird that he liked it, but his lungs felt light and his belly buzzed warm and he didn’t give a fuck.

  
Levi bent to nip at his chest, sucking and sharp, dark hair falling across Erwin’s blond curls. Erwin hissed, still feeling like a laugh was bubbling somewhere in his chest. The jumbled sensations made him squirm. Levi was hard against his stomach, he realized, and he let out another strangled groan.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said again, settling back to sit on Erwin’s hips. He palmed Erwin’s chest again, seeming unable to help himself or look away. Maybe he liked to see their size difference, the way his hands were dwarfed by the expanse of Erwin’s upper body.

  
Erwin shivered and raised an eyebrow. “Levi,” he intoned, still unsure if he wanted to laugh or bite his lip and roll his hips.

  
“I’m going to fuck them.”

  
Erwin blinked. “Sorry?”

  
“The tits.”

  
“You’re going to fuck my tits.”

  
“Or die trying.” Levi glared down at him, sharp nose wrinkled, but his lips were twitching and his sides shivered with a bitten back amusement.

  
There was hushed laughter and awkward fumbling, but eventually Levi was actually rolling his hips into Erwin’s chest, cock squeezed into the valley he’d made for himself, thumbing Erwin’s nipples while Erwin laughed and groaned and fisted his own cock. It wasn’t perfect and Erwin was worried about his hair giving Levi roadburn, but judging by the way Levi's eyes kept sliding shut, it was working just fine.

  
“You’re crazy,” he told Levi, craning his neck to watch Levi’s rocking hips, the wet head of his cock slipping in and out of his foreskin, and his own reddened, swollen nipples.

  
“Yeah. You like it,” Levi said.

  
“Yeah. _Fuck_.”

 

Hanji found them like that, a brief while later, on their way to the kitchen for water for Petra. They paused in the doorway, looking impressed. Levi froze mid-thrust and growled at them like a tiny, irritated animal.

  
“Nice,” Hanji said.

  
Erwin lifted his hand from Levi's ass and saluted, too tipsy and aroused to think about how Hanji could see the way Levi's cock was wedged between his pecs. It registered and he batted it away just as fast.

  
“If you get cum on my couch, I’ll make you come talk to the kids about the importance of lubricant and stretching before anal sex.”

  
Erwin shuddered. “Stop, you’re ruining it.”

  
“Just a warning, babes.” And then Hanji was carrying on, getting a glass of water and returning upstairs.

  
“Turn around,” Erwin said, patting Levi’s ass.

  
Levi grumbled a bit, but eventually seemed nearly as happy crouching over Erwin and letting him lap and suck at his cock until he came, shuddering, in Erwin’s mouth with minimal mess, and returned the favor enthusiastically.

 

 

Hanji was disturbingly disappointed to find their couch spotless when they came sailing in to lay across Erwin and Levi the next morning, all wild hair and morning breath and insisting on being held. Levi snarled and told them to go find Petra, but Erwin gathered them both up, one in either arm, and told them to shut the fuck up because his head was _throbbing_ and immediately passed back out.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You darlings in the eruri crew are so freaking talented and kind, I want to roll over and cry. It's overwhelming. I just...troll the internet and gasp over your gorgeous art and your fucking masterpiece fics.
> 
> HC: Everyone, including myself, is low-key in love with Petra. Please send help. This was a love letter to Petra Ral, I'll be honest.


	7. Strike Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aisle 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one this afternoon.

 

They had ants.

 

They had ants, the cat tracked mud through the kitchen, and Levi was on a full-blown cleaning kick. Erwin found him in elbow-length rubber gloves, a face-mask, and an apron, head shoved into their rarely used lazy-suzan style cabinet. The cat sat just behind Levi, tail twitching as it purred amidst tiny paw-prints and watched him scrub feverishly.

  
Erwin knelt down next to him, trying to figure out how far gone Levi was. When Levi didn't pull his head out of the cabinet, Erwin hummed so as not to surprise him, and placed his hand at the small of Levi's back, rubbing gentle circles.

  
"Dirty?" he asked.

  
Levi scoffed, noise echoing around the small space. He pulled back and looked at Erwin with a miserable expression, his eyebrows pulled high and tight. "We have ants," Levi muttered, voice muffled in the mask, eyes a bit distant. "There were crumbs in here." He wore a bandana to hold back his hair and Erwin melted a little.

  
"I see," Erwin said, calm. They got ants every year.

  
Levi turned to dive back into the cabinet, but Erwin placed a palm against his cheek and used his other hand to carefully pull Levi's mask down, smoothing his thumb along Levi's lips. "I'll do the cabinet," he said, worried over the fumes Levi was no doubt inhaling. "You do the floor. Alright?"

  
Levi narrowed his eyes.

  
"I'll be thorough."

  
"Fine," he snapped and looked down at the cat. "You're a fucking traitor," he told it. The cat rubbed its tattered ears against Levi's leg and meowed in its hideous voice.

 

 

As it turned out, Levi had used up all of the floor wipes last week when Erwin had apparently done a dissatisfactory job of cleaning his hair out of the sink, which somehow turned into Levi scrubbing the tub, which turned into Erwin dragging him into the tub and giving him a massage in warm, peppermint-scented water.

  
"How could I let this happen," Levi hissed. Tiny paw-prints led from the back door and across the entirety of the kitchen floor in little circles. Erwin imagined Levi meandering around the kitchen making tea with the cat following him like a devoted shadow before it spotted the ants and went wild. That was probably exactly what had happened. There were a few little tracks on their counter that he chose not to point out.

  
"I was pretty happy with the turn of events," Erwin shrugged, remembering Levi pressed to his chest, loose-limbed and exhausted in the bathtub. He took a breath and braced himself, quietly watching Levi move to fuss and rummage again through their cleaning supply under the sink, like maybe he had missed the container on the first go through. "Levi."

  
"What," Levi growled.

  
"Want to go to the grocery store?"

  
The expression on Levi's face was both terrifying and life-affirming.

 

 

"We have a budget," Erwin told Levi, hand pressed between his shoulder blades. He wasn't sure if he was trying to ground himself or Levi with the action.

  
Levi grinned up at him, a wide, eye-crinkling one, and Erwin's breath caught. "Of course," Levi said. "We always have a budget."

  
"And we always blow it," Erwin sighed. It was so hard to feel anything other than fond amusement though, watching Levi read the backs of cleaning supplies like they held the answers to all his problems, and then explain to Erwin why he should use one type of detergent over another in situations and his experience with various types of antibacterial wipes. For the first year they lived together, Levi refused to let Erwin touch his laundry. The day he finally did, Erwin teasingly cooked him a special dinner and Levi lobbed a wet rag at his face for his cheek. Except, Erwin knew it was monumental, and it dawned on Levi that Erwin got it when he pulled Levi into a hug, face buried in his soft hair, and refused to let go through several long inhales of Levi's scent.  

 

"Thank you," Erwin murmured.

  
"You're embarrassing," Levi grumbled.

  
"I love you," Erwin had said.

 

 

Now Levi was motoring through the blessedly cool grocery store to Aisle 10 with a gleam in his eyes that was admittedly an improvement from the dull look he'd leveled at Erwin earlier.

  
Erwin grabbed him, halting his advance with an arm around his waist one aisle away from the cleaning supply aisle. Levi growled.

  
"Wait," Erwin laughed. "Should we get cat food while we're here. Instead of, you know, feeding it people food?"

  
Levi made a face. "Have you seen that shit?"

  
“The cat food? Well, yeah. But it's made for cats."

  
"It looks like shit."

  
"So, our cat is going to eat human-grade meat for the rest of its charmed life?"

  
Levi peered up at him with a tight expression on his sharp face, still wrapped in Erwin's arms. "Maybe."

  
"Oh god, it really is our child," Erwin groaned and pressed a kiss to Levi's hair. “I’m the accidental father of a _cat_. Shit.”

  
"I'm not touching that canned abomination,” Levi sniffed.

  
"Okay," Erwin sighed. So much for the budget. "What if I touch it?"

  
"Cat's not touching it."

  
" _Cat_ got the kitchen dirty this morning."

  
Levi narrowed his eyes. "I'm aware."

  
Erwin nearly pointed out that Levi loved that stupid cat and its chain-smoker yowl, but he liked the little menace too so he patted Levi's backside. “Alright, then. Talley-ho."

  
Levi scowled and stalked off to the cleaning supply aisle with a great deal of dignity.

 

 

Erwin was crouched down to look at a swiveling micro-fiber dust mop, having lost Levi to the various containers of wet wipes a while ago. He turned his head to call for Levi, only to startle when he realized Levi right behind him, watching Erwin with bright eyes. "I think this would actually be useful," he said. "For getting at the dust along our crown molding."

 

Levi shuddered, half-theatrically and half with what Erwin thought might be actual lust. "Tell me more," he purred, a laugh buzzing just under his voice.

  
“Um, well." Erwin cleared his throat. "After I cleaned the crown molding, I'd immediately replace the microfiber with a clean pad,” he tried, biting back a wide grin.

  
Levi pushed forward so that his hips rubbed against Erwin's shoulders where he was still crouched in front to the display. "Fuck," he said.

 

Erwin couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but the aisle was empty so he went for it. "Yeah? You like that?"

  
"So fucking sanitary." Levi wound a hand into Erwin's hair and tugged. "More."

  
"Then I'd get at that space in the corner of the living room you can't reach?" His voiced climbed on a question, unable to keep a straight face.

  
"C'mon, say it sexier than that. What the fuck was that shit? Gross." Levi tugged his hair. He was worrying his lip, trying to hold back a grin as he gazed down at Erwin with laughter-bright eyes. He thrust his hips into Erwin's back.

  
"You'll regret this," Erwin warned.

  
"I very much doubt that."

  
Erwin reached for one of the microfiber mops, carefully tugging it away from the others on display, and he wrapped his fingers around it loosely, sliding his hand in a glaring innuendo up the length of the handle. Levi practically purred.

  
"Well, it's summer," he said, trying to pitch his voice low and swallow a laugh at the same time. "So I'd have to take my shirt off to clean, Levi."

  
"Yes," Levi hissed. "And wear an apron."

  
Erwin blinked. "With my shirt off?”

  
" _Just_ an apron."

  
"Okay," Erwin pressed his lips together for a moment and stared down at the mop that he was caressing. He might have to buy the thing after he rubbed it like this. "Just an apron, then."

  
Levi ground his hips into Erwin's back again. "And gloves. The kind that go up to your elbows."

  
"Alright, so I'm naked in an apron and gloves.”

  
Levi shuddered.

  
"What do you want me to do?" Erwin purred.

  
"Fuck, _everything_."

  
"You?" He imagined Levi bending him over and fucking him against their island while he wore the apron and gloves. He could get on board with that. "Me?"

  
" _Vacuum_ , Erwin. And then the dishes. Ah, _fuck_. And then let me watch you stretch up and clean the molding."

  
Erwin pressed a hand to his mouth, smothering a snort. Levi was slightly hard against his back, hands gripping his hair and shoulders. Erwin looked up and Levi blinked down with a glazed over expression, amusement still pulling his lips into a gentle curve. Erwin turned to press his face to Levi's belly because only _Levi_ would get off on descriptions of cleaning, and he fucking loved him for it.

  
"You are something else," Erwin murmured, kissing his stomach before standing, knees cracking audibly.

  
"Does that mean you'll let me watch you vacuum?"

  
"Yeah, you crazy bastard. I'll even do the dishes in just an apron tonight if you want."

  
" _Fuck_." Levi groaned and suddenly Erwin was scrambling to catch an armful of the squirming man as Levi pressed up to kiss him, licking into his mouth immediately.

  
Erwin laughed and cupped the back of his neck, wrapping an arm around his waist to steady him. "Holy shit, okay. Jesus, should we get the mop." His voice came muffled in between Levi's kisses.

  
Levi hitched a leg up around Erwin's hip. " _Yes_."

  
Erwin heard the store announcement system go off, irritated that it drowned out the sound of Levi's pleased huff when he said, "We need lysol wipes, too."

  
Levi's hand was snaking down to palm Erwin through his jeans. Erwin huffed in surprise when Levi gave him a quick squeeze before pulling back to lick at his lips. He turned his head to look at something up the aisle. Erwin followed his gaze. A bemused security guard stood a few paces off.

  
"I'm sorry gentlemen, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

 

Erwin sent Levi to start the car while he bought the wipes, and that damned mop he'd fondled, followed the entire time by the security guard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zed, I hope I did this justice.
> 
>  
> 
> I have a 3 more one-shots left if you're interested?
> 
>  
> 
> Edit: Someone take away the edit button.


	8. Strike Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry Hannes. You suffer in every 'verse.
> 
> This chapter got a bit more melancholy than I intended... Erwin was more angsty than I wanted, but I figured after that episode I'd let the man let his hurt out. (That said, do I ever really write anything *truly* angsty? Nah.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawls back from inactivity* 
> 
> It's so good to be back in this silly universe. Apologies on the gap between chapters. I got lost playing with catdads and mermaids and daycare aus. <3
> 
> There was a darling reviewer once who had hoped to see Erwin’s insecurities in this verse and how Levi would help him (you delightful little sadist, I hope you're well wherever you are)... Don’t worry, I've got that planned. See chapter 10 if I ever mcfricking finish this fic/fluff-fest.
> 
> Twas a lazy afternoon here, and I thought maybe people could use this after 36: [mood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z137gSRORiU) and, uh, [mood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWlKZ6C7cDY)

 

 

 

Levi stretched out on the blanket in their backyard.  The heat of the afternoon amplified the scent of lingering laundry detergent and it tangled with their garden, heady flowers and thick soap.  He wrinkled his nose.  A grasshopper ricocheted by in a rustle of wings and chirps.

  
He closed the book he’d been reading— _Competitive Debate: The Official Guide_ , how fucking riveting—and rolled onto his back to looked up at the sky, squinting absently. It was a pretty day, startlingly blue and bright with clouds galloping by on a breeze that carried enough breath to lessen the weight of the heat. Exactly the kind of day he liked best.

  
It was too quiet though, lacking a rumbling voice and a presence electric enough to crackle through the air in Levi’s lungs even when Erwin was on the other side of the house. Levi sighed and shifted against the blanket, flopping back onto his stomach to press his hips to the fabric. The sun melted the muscles in his shoulders and painted his hair hot.

  
Erwin had annotated his tattered copy of the guide book, and Levi found his looping scrawl and highlights far more interesting than the actual material. But his notes made Levi want to ask him _why_ he thought this sentence or that one was important when half of it seemed mere semantics and the kind of bullshit that made Levi roll his eyes. Every time the urge hit him, he gritted his teeth and huffed, saving up his questions for later.

  
Levi tried to picture himself helping with the debate team that coming fall and his imagination fell very short. So he closed his eyes and leaned into the memory of Erwin instead. The summer heat made autumn seem so hazy in the far distance it could've been a mirage.

  
Erwin had left for the high school hours ago, brushing an absent kiss to Levi’s forehead, his mind clearly on the staff meeting already.

  
“Levi,” he’d said, nuzzling along the crown of Levi’s head while Levi fought the urge to curl his fingers into Erwin’s shirt to hold him still, to keep him home for a little longer, to force their schedules to align. “I’m going to stay after for a while, okay?” Erwin murmured. “I want to get some work done before dinner.” He pressed a kiss against the “Fine,” that caught at Levi’s teeth, and then he was gone, leaving behind crackling warmth that faded too quickly for Levi’s liking.

  
The weight of his pelvis against the blanket felt good and the lazy breeze, the sunlight, made Levi drowsy, his veins full of slow heat. Arousal rolled quietly through his belly.

 

He wanted Erwin, he thought with sleepy irritation, and pressed his hips down harder, rocking half-consciously. He’d wanted him since the morning, upon waking up and knowing he had the day free and Erwin didn’t. Since Erwin had buried his face in Levi’s neck, stubble ticklish, and flung a heavy arm across Levi’s waist to keep him from getting out of bed while Erwin struggled to wake up, tired breaths wuffed against Levi’s collarbones, like sighing hard enough would expel the sleep from his body.

 

Levi didn’t want to grind himself against the blanket in broad daylight and the bedroom seemed so cold and empty when he wanted Erwin’s hands on his hips, in his hair, wanted the hot groans of his breath to his neck. Levi closed his eyes and let his cheek rest heavy on the blanket, hips falling still.

  
If he let his mind drift, the weight of the sun felt like the warmth of Erwin’s body, pressing him to the blanket and holding him in place, the breeze like soft huffs of praise tickling the hair at the back of his neck. Levi’s cock stirred in throbs, stiffening with each sighed out breath.  _Goddamn_ , he thought. Because the sun and the wind were too insubstantial to ever be what he wanted.

 

Levi stood, his joints locked and muscles lazy, cock pressed insistent against his briefs while he stretched and folded the blanket. He wasn’t in a rush for once. The rolling want would keep, and the flowers looked so enticing as he passed and ran a gentle finger over the velvety petals that unfurled for a brief while longer in the afternoon light. Flowers were such fleeting things, Levi thought as he watched them shiver in the breeze. 

  
He never let Erwin cut them for vases in the house. What was the point when they lasted longer out the window?

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Erwin always thought it was strange that the school smelled both familiar and utterly different all at once when it was empty of students. Could something smell bereft? Like the absent noise had stolen all notes of scent when it left. It was the same every summer, but every summer it struck him all over again.

  
He frowned and flipped through to another lesson plan, trying to decide the type of project to give his students. But his chin was cupped in his hand and his eyes drifted to the window, and he was falling sideways into a daydream before he could catch himself.

  
It was a nice day out, the kind Levi loved in particular, when it wasn’t too hot and there was enough of a breeze to ruffle his scattered bangs. Erwin smiled. He wondered if Levi was in the backyard, sprawled out on that godforsaken blanket. Erwin knew the heat eased the ache in Levi’s legs even if the man wilted and grumbled quiet complaints about it. He hoped the cat was keeping him company, a pair of grouchy little shadows slinking around and soaking up sun in the garden. If Erwin tried, he could catch a ghosting memory of Levi’s earl grey-scent, always lingering on his breath, and his summer sweat, sticky-sweet.

  
Maybe it was the empty echo of dark hallways, or the way he knew already that he’d miss his former students with a sharp pain in his chest, or how summer passed more quickly than the rest of the seasons, no matter how hard he clung, but Erwin’s stomach churned and he wondered if Levi was more lonely than he let on.

  
He fished his cell out of his pocket with a rush of want. It blinked with a missed call. Levi. Fuck. Levi never left voice messages, to Erwin’s endless exasperation.

  
_Levi, if you call, surely it’s important enough to leave a message._

  
_Erwin, if I call and you don’t answer, I can wait. I’ll text if I’ve got to._

  
The phone rang through, going to voicemail. Erwin sighed heavily and looked out the window again, wondering why Levi had called. Sometimes he wanted to bring Levi to school with him on slow days like this, but there was nothing for Levi to do and the selfishness of the desire made Erwin queasy. What did he expect, for Levi to be content to read at a desk? To sit by his side and listen to him ramble? _Honestly_. He felt badly enough asking him to help out that coming fall. Erwin huffed a growling breath at himself, imagining Levi rolling his eyes.

  
“ _You’re getting sappy, old man_ ,” Levi would drawl. “ _Disgusting_.”

  
Erwin smiled at the Levi of his imagination. _You don’t hate it_ , he thought fondly. But then he thought, _I’m sorry, Levi_.

  
But before the shadowy version of Levi could ask, “ _For what?_ ” the door to his classroom clicked open, startling him into a shout and skipping heartbeats. He braced his hands on his desk and swung his head to look so quickly his neck twinged.

 

A drawl came from the doorway, tighter than usual. “Did I scare you, old man?”  

 

The burst of delight in Erwin’s heart was as immediate as the pitter-patter of his surprise.  “ _Levi_.” 

  
“Miss me?” Levi stepped into Erwin's classroom, letting the door click shut behind him. His cheeks were flecked with uncharacteristic color, flush splashed under his sharp eyes and across the bridge of his nose. His lids drooped lazy over his eyes, keen mixing with put-upon blasé, and Erwin’s stomach twisted with the rush of his affection.

  
“Yes,” Erwin said so quickly Levi’s feet faltered and he stood blinking for a moment.

  
Levi cleared his throat. “Oh. Good.”

  
Erwin stared at him, wondering for a heartbeat if the Levi from his imagination had somehow tripped out of his mind by force of want, but he shoved it away and focused on the Levi so very much present and real in front of him.

  
“You called,” he said, looking again at the high color on Levi’s face. It made him look young and Erwin felt a grin tug at his mouth.

  
“Yeah. You didn’t pick up.” Levi shifted, mouth tight like it was when he was teasing and trying not to let on that he was being playful.

  
“I’m sorry,” Erwin said. _I’m sorry, Levi_. His stomach twisted again, sour this time.

  
“For what?” Levi asked. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, focusing on the sudden downturn of Erwin’s mouth.

  
Erwin swallowed and shook his head. “Come here?” Levi still stood a classroom away.

  
Levi’s mouth twitched. “Fine.” He paced across the room at an awkward gait, like he was shy, except that wasn’t quite right, Erwin could tell. But before Erwin could figure it out, Levi was close enough for him to curl hands about his waist and pull him to stand between his parted thighs. He buried his face in Levi’s chest, inhaling bitter tea and sweat. Erwin sighed and slid his hands up Levi’s back, holding him close and rubbing his cheek against the warm cotton of Levi’s shirt.

  
“Hey,” Levi said. He pressed a gentle hand against Erwin’s forehead to push him away from his chest. Erwin frowned up at him, hands flexing against Levi’s back in an effort to keep him close. Levi dragged a finger at the corner of Erwin’s mouth, tracing his frown. “What’s with the shitty attitude?”

  
Erwin tilted his head to rest against Levi’s palm, familiar callouses catching at his cheek. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said instead of answering.

  
Levi was silent for a few moments except for his quiet breathing, letting Erwin close his eyes and lean heavily against his palm. His free hand carded through Erwin’s hair. Erwin wondered what he was thinking.

  
“Why _are_ you here?” he mumbled against Levi’s hand.

  
Levi tilted Erwin’s head up. His eyes were intense and pink still colored his cheekbones. Erwin thought again that there was something off, different. Or rather, familiar. Levi took a step forward, then another, and Erwin pulled him in at the same time, until he was flush against Erwin’s chest.

  
“ _Oh_ ,” Erwin breathed.

  
Levi nearly smiled. “Dunno, just wanted to come I guess.” His eyes flickered so bright at his own wit that Erwin had to quickly press his face to Levi’s chest as he laughed too hard. Levi’s body shook against his cheek with his own silent laughter. His cock was thick with lazy interest, not entirely hard where nudged at Erwin’s chest.

  
“Really. You just wanted to come, hmm?” Erwin slid his hands down to palm at Levi’s ass, but he froze when Levi let out a sharp whine. Erwin glanced up at Levi’s face quickly, _are you hurt?_ on the tip of his tongue, but Levi’s eyes were slipping shut, lips drooping on a wounded huff that Erwin was very much familiar with. Erwin swallowed and palmed him hard, breath catching when Levi curled forward around his head and bucked his hips into Erwin’s chest.

  
“Levi, did you?” Erwin began on a hunch, thinking of the flush across Levi’s face. He slipped his hand down the back of Levi’s jeans, pressing and searching until he felt a bump through his briefs. “Christ,” he groaned.

  
Levi huffed again as his hips flexed forward to rub against Erwin and it might have been a laugh or a stifled whine, Erwin wasn’t sure.

  
“No one’s here,” Levi said, voice stretching tight. Erwin pressed against the plug, wrapped an arm around Levi’s waist to hold him steady. He rested his head against Levi’s chest to catch his hitching breaths.

  
Erwin felt himself growing heavy and stiff against his own thigh, uncomfortable in his jeans. “How did you get in?” he asked, gently guiding Levi to use his body for friction.

  
Levi’s answer came a few beats late. “Through a window.” He wound his fingers into Erwin’s hair.

  
Erwin paused, hand still shoved down Levi’s pants, and pulled back to look up, mind turning over several scenarios, each more painfully, heartbreakingly humorous than the last. Levi gazed back, a bit more hazy than challenging. “Wearing a plug? Fuck, is that why you’d called?”

  
Levi’s eyes tightened with amusement. “Yeah, Erwin. The things I do for love.”

  
“ _Jesus_ ,” Erwin said. "Leave a message next time," though he knew Levi wouldn't. He shifted to slide his hand down into Levi’s briefs, across his warm skin to push weight against the toy, lips trailing across Levi’s chest until he found a nipple to worry with his mouth. Levi sucked a sharp inhale and bucked against Erwin’s chest. “Fuck,” Erwin groaned around a mouthful of cotton. “Fuck, I don’t have—we shouldn’t.” But he rolled Levi’s nipple between his teeth, cotton growing damp and dark, and tapped at the toy until a whine climbed out of Levi’s throat.

  
“ _I_ do, and you’re a liar,” Levi panted. He reached to fumble in his pocket, holding Erwin to his chest with his other hand. Erwin closed his eyes, still mouthing at Levi’s nipple, his hands coming around to circle his waist. He was getting lost. This always happened. Levi wanted and Erwin gave and gave until surely he ought to be empty. But there was the bitter scent of tea in his nose and Levi’s sides shuddering under his palms, and he always had more to give than he expected.

  
Levi tossed a condom and a packet of lube onto Erwin’s desk. “Are we gonna do this?” His drawl was tight and breathy, despite what Erwin was certain were his best efforts.

  
“Yes,” Erwin said, without hesitation. “Yeah, god.” The wolfish grin crinkled all the way up to his eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The desk rubbed at Levi’s back with each rocking thrust, but it was so hard to care when Erwin’s thumb were intent on rubbing his nipples swollen and Erwin’s eyes keep sliding shut, all dark with pupil, as he tried desperately to maintain eye contact and failed when another roll of his hips made him groan and his head fall forward, hair scattering across his forehead as his eyes squeezed shut. Levi arched his back and hissed at the feeling of Erwin’s hips flush to his, his body gripping tight around Erwin as he tried to accommodate being so full.

  
“ _Oh_ , Levi.” Erwin fought to open his eyes again and Levi let a pitiful whimper slip out. “Fuck, I’m going to be in the middle of teaching.” Levi grabbed at one of Erwin's hands and pressed it to his cheek to ground himself, turning to rest his teeth against the thick of Erwin’s palm. Erwin groaned. “I’m gonna be teaching, and— _ah_.” He snapped his hips and leaned forward to press sloppy kisses along Levi’s neck, more teeth than lip.

  
“And?” Levi tried to ignore that his own voice sounded like a whistle rattling out of his chest.

  
“And— _ah, god_ , and how am I _ever_ supposed to concentrate in this room again?” Erwin buried his face in Levi’s neck, shoving a hand under Levi’s arched back to support him, his other hand sliding up into Levi’s hair, body all hunched up as he fucked frantically into Levi. Levi could feel the way his lashes fluttered against his skin.

  
“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Levi rasped. He tightened his legs around Erwin’s waist and curled fingers into Erwin’s hair, holding him to his neck while he fit his other hand between their bodies and fumbled over his wet erection, chasing the aching arousal in his pelvis because Erwin wasn’t going to last, not with the way Levi could hear his breath hitching at every push of his hips and how his thighs shook, constrained as they were by the jeans around his knees.

  
Erwin dipped his hips down and angled himself up on his next thrust, the swollen head of his cock brushing Levi’s prostate. “There?” he panted. He pulled away from Levi’s neck to press his forehead to Levi’s, eyes unfocused. Levi tried to find something more than a low groan to offer. “There, Levi?” Erwin asked again, pushing into Levi at sharper angle. His voice was a wreck, more moan than coherent question. “Tell me where.” He nuzzled his face blindly along Levi’s cheek.

  
“Yeah, yes. _Fuck_.” Levi tried to get enough air, and pumped himself harder. " _There_ , Erwin."

  
“God, you’re incredible. I can’t believe you.” Erwin scattered kisses across his forehead, hips stuttering. He was close, Levi thought, and Levi could feel his own orgasm winding tighter and tighter, cock wet in his hand, swelling harder. “I wanted this,” Erwin groaned. “I wanted this, Levi, god I—”

  
The door to the room flew open with a bang followed by the ruckus clatter of something falling to the floor. Erwin shouted in surprise— a loud, cracking burst of sound—and Levi bit his shoulder to hide his own garbled shriek, hand clamping down against the base of his cock. The smell of disinfectant flickered through his consciousness.

  
“What the fuck!” Erwin panted, still buried deep inside of Levi. “ _Hannes?_ ” He hunched his body protectively over Levi like that would hide him. Levi tried and failed not to feel like a stranded turtle.

  
“Ah shit! Erwin. Shit man, I thought you were in trouble or something.” There was the sound of what Levi thought might be cleaning supplies being hastily snatched up.

  
“I told you you were loud,” Levi grumbled. His cock throbbed, begging for attention, though his heart still raced unevenly. “Who the fuck is that?” He shifted, hips squirming unhappily, and watched Erwin’s throat bob as he swallowed a groan.

  
The man spoke again, though, before Erwin could answer. “I’ll clean later, yeah? Okay. Great.” His voice started to fade. “Nice to see you…Erwin, Mr. Smith. Great. Enjoy… Oh god, _shit_.” The door slammed shut and stillness settled back over the room.

  
Erwin looked down at Levi, cheeks flushed from sex and embarrassment, though his eyes were bright with something like stunned amusement. His lips parted and then closed again a few times.

  
“You’re still hard,” Levi said before Erwin could come up with anything to say. He squeezed intentionally around Erwin’s cock. This time when Erwin’s lips parted, it was on a sharp inhale.

  
Erwin raised an eyebrow. “So’re you.” He gave a short jerk of his hips.

  
“Observant,” Levi said, but it came out more strained than he meant. “Who was that?”

  
“Hannes. The janitor.” Erwin grinned, a bit sheepish, slowly starting to rock his hips again into Levi’s body. “Poor man.”

  
“Mmm,” Levi sighed, "yeah." He squirmed his hips again and sighed, running his hand up the length of his cock. The rush of relieved pleasure made his head spin. " _Oh_." His veins still burned hot and his belly twisted up with arousal.

  
Erwin huffed a laugh and a groan. “You could _act_ embarrassed.”

  
“So could you,” Levi said. He thought he might have been embarrassed, when he was younger, and when he cared about things like his height or how he looked naked—too muscular for his frame and all scarred up. But as it was, he was full of Erwin, and he couldn’t look away from the reckless amusement fading back to dark want in Erwin’s eyes.

  
“You better finish this,” Levi growled, reaching to tug Erwin down to his mouth. His back was sore from the wood of the desk, he registered somewhere in the back of his mind.

  
“You’re a terrible influence,” Erwin murmured against his lips, biting and licking at Levi’s mouth. His voice purred with approval. "I'm going to get a reputation."

   
Levi arched into his touch, closing his eyes and letting himself get lost in the way Erwin smelled, and how he felt moving inside his body. “It's not just me,” he heard himself moan, but he was gone, chasing the notes that fell too loud out of Erwin’s mouth.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Orgasms were fleeting as blossoms, these particular bursts unfurling while the sun died bloody in a classroom empty except for the dust motes and the lingering scent of disinfectant. But Erwin was glad to have the echo of Levi there, now, so that on rough days when everything went to hell despite his best efforts, he could close his eyes and take a breath, could conjure up the ghost of Levi’s scent and his eyes, always wide with surprise when he came, like the force of his own orgasm was still more than he expected even after so many years. And Erwin could chase that memory home, where he longed to gather Levi up, warm and firm and real, grumbling to hide his pleasure at being held.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more strike and an extra to go :) i promise that the next chapter will be nothing but ridiculous fluff. 
> 
> Christ, I forgot how much I love this universe. I’ve set the chapter cap at ten because otherwise this will be never ending. But I feel like when I write the last, I’ll miss this world terribly and maybe I’ll update from time to time? No promises. But they’re so tender and so. damn. happy. It’s nice to come back and bury myself here. Though, as I said, this was a wee bit more angsty than I intended. Can you blame me tho? <3
> 
>  
> 
> I'm on tumblr btw @[kaguneko](https://kaguneko.tumblr.com)! I mean, my blog is a mess, and I wouldn't recommend following, but I'm friendly!


	9. Omake: What Happened the Evening After Grocery Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A birthday present for gouguruheddo ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't supposed to happen! 
> 
> Essentially...what happened immediately after Aisle 10

Levi’s amusement lasted as long as the drive home, where he sat smug in the passenger seat, curled around their new mop with his feet tucked up under his body.  He watched the cars pass out the window, but the corner of his mouth was turned up when Erwin glanced over at red lights.  He wanted to pull the car over and pepper kisses down the line of Levi’s neck to see if he could win a bright burst of laughter.

  
Erwin trailed after him into the house when they arrived, helpless to do anything except follow the slight dance in Levi’s gait as he toed off his shoes like he could hear faint music, left their bags by the door, and then flitted through the house in search of a cool surface to sprawl on.  

_It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth._

He was so caught up in watching the delicate steps Levi took that he nearly collided with his back when Levi froze at the threshold to their kitchen.

  
“Levi?”  Erwin dipped to press his lips to Levi’s hair.  The dark of it still held the sun and it made Erwin want to hum and rub his cheek against the warmth.

  
Levi made a quiet noise of dismay, though, and he swung wide eyes up at Erwin.  His hands gripped the mop handle tight and in the span of a panicked blink, his mood crumbled and the morning swept back in to turn his stare hazy.  

  
“We have ants, Erwin,” he said dully, like Erwin had forgotten that reason behind their grocery store excursion.  “Look at the shit all over the floor.”

  
The cat yowled from the living room like acknowledging its mess had summoned it, and the tabby wound its way over, tangling with Levi’s ankles.  Levi glanced at the cat, the footprints, and back up at Erwin.  His brows began to knit together and pull high.

  
“Erwin,” Levi whispered.  His hands worked against the mop handle while his voice crawled higher.

  
Slowly, Erwin pulled Levi around to face away from the kitchen and bent to kiss the crease between his eyes, brought his hands up to slide thumbs along Levi’s clenched jaw muscles.  “I know,” he mumbled against Levi’s skin.  

  
Levi huffed quietly though his nose and pushed back into Erwin’s hands.  Erwin ran his lips across Levi’s forehead, pressing kisses from his temple, up along his hairline, and down to smooth his eyebrows while he surveyed the damage.  Levi didn’t try to pull back or open his eyes; his head felt heavy where it rested between Erwin’s hands.  The cat paused its frenzied meowing to emit even more frantic-sounding purrs against Levi’s legs, but at least it quieted long enough for Erwin to make a plan.

  
Erwin brushed his lips across Levi’s eyelids.  

One.  

       Then the other. 

A kiss placed on the tip of Levi’s sharp nose.  

       A fourth, a fifth.

 

Levi sighed and Erwin smiled when he reached the corner of Levi’s mouth.

  
“Levi,” he murmured.

  
Levi opened his mouth against Erwin’s, lips seeking, blindly nosing closer.  He still hadn’t opened his eyes.

  
“Levi, don’t move.”  Erwin pulled back in time to catch Levi’s face scrunching into confusion, mouth still parted and pliant where he’d been hoping for kisses.  His eyelids fluttered and Erwin quickly slid a hand up to cover his eyes.  Levi’s lashes tickled his palm.

  
“Erwin?” Levi asked, but the frown he sported was a soft one and his chin still leaned heavy on Erwin’s other hand.  Erwin felt some of his own tension unwind.  He’d caught this unraveling before Levi could even ask for help; he was learning. 

  
The cat yowled for attention again and Erwin felt like he was fumbling with the threads when Levi flinched.

  
“Trust me?” Erwin asked, slipping the hand from under Levi’s chin around the back of his neck and nuzzling just below his ear.

  
Levi sighed.  “You know I do.  What kind of needy bullshit?  Honestly.”  His voice was low though, rolling against Erwin’s cheek, and it made Erwin smile.

 

“Mhm,” Erwin hummed against Levi’s neck.  “I’m very high maintenance.  You’re a saint.”  He pitched his tone as low as Levi’s.  “Keep your eyes closed for me, ’kay?”  Erwin pulled back and took his hand from Levi’s eyes.  He ran fingertips across Levi’s cheek, stroked his hands along Levi’s shoulders and down to his wrists to take hold of them.  He pried the mop from Levi’s hands and leaned it against the wall before bending low to loop Levi’s arms up around his neck.  Levi let Erwin manipulate his body, quiet and leaning into his touch. 

 

Erwin hummed again. “Good Levi, just like that.  Keep your eyes closed.”

 

Levi huffed and Erwin thought he was rolling his eyes something fierce on the other side of his shut lids.  He smiled as fondly as he wanted since he knew Levi couldn’t see, and scooped him up into his arms.  It was a testament to how out of sorts Levi was feeling that he didn’t even squawk, just rested that heavy chin on Erwin’s shoulder and wrapped his legs around Erwin’s waist.  His fingers tangled with the hair at the nape of Erwin’s neck.

  
Erwin made sure Levi couldn’t hear the strain in his voice when he teased, “Are they still closed?”  

  
“I swear to god, Erwin.”  But Levi leaned his head against Erwin’s and let himself be carried over to the cleanest bit of counter Erwin could find without protest.  Levi didn’t seem keen on letting go of his grip on Erwin’s hips, but he let Erwin pull away to let the cat outside, where the scrappy tabby immediately beelined for their mulch.  Erwin thought maybe they’d be bathing the cat soon.

 

  
Levi sat completely still the entire time Erwin got together what he needed, hands in his lap, eyelids squeezed a shade too tight.  The kitchen was still in the late afternoon, silent except for the clinking Erwin made, the sound of the tap running, hushed rustling of fabric, and bare feet against tile.  Levi’s shoulders relaxed gradually.

  
“Okay,” Erwin murmured when he’d finished.  “You can open them.”

  
“Thanks for your permission,” Levi grumbled.  He blinked a few times and then zeroed in on the scrap of fabric in Erwin’s fist.  “What are you doing?”

  
Erwin swallowed.  He wanted to do this.  He wanted it so badly he nearly dropped to his knees in the muddy paw prints at Levi’s feet right that moment to lay his head in Levi’s lap and beg like a dog.  But he considered the set of Levi’s mouth and the tightness of his eyes, and summoned a playful tone from the pit of his stomach.  “What you wanted,” he said, with a crooked attempt at a grin.  

  
Levi frowned.

  
Erwin waggled the apron.

  
“Erwin.”

  
Erwin toyed with the edge of his teeshirt.  “I have the gloves.”

  
Levi narrowed his eyes.  “I know what you’re doing.”

  
Erwin widened his eyes.  He couldn’t quite remember how round and innocent felt on his face.

  
Levi snorted.  “I’ll let you clean if you stop making that face.  Disgusting.”

  
“ _You’ll_ — let—” Erwin sputtered for a moment, eyes startling genuinely wide.  But Levi’s eyes were lucid grey and he couldn’t quite hide his tiny grin, so Erwin snapped his mouth shut.  

 

  
His shirt went first, tossed to the side on the dirty floor.  Levi watched quietly at first, subdued.  Erwin’s neck prickled at the way Levi’s eyes trailed over his chest, lingering on the planes he’d fucked against frantically, pausing at Erwin’s navel where he’d left sharp little teeth marks.  When Erwin had stepped out of his jeans, Levi dragged his eyes from Erwin’s ankles to his eyes.  Spots of color bloomed high on his cheekbones.  Erwin didn’t bother to hide his swelling cock anymore than he tried to suck in the softness of his stomach.  Levi shifted on the counter, pressing his legs together.  He’d stopped staring at the dirt a while ago.

  
When Erwin finally stood in just the apron, cock pushing the pale pink fabric out at a desperate angle, Levi squirmed.

  
“Are you really gonna to clean the fucking kitchen like that?”  He didn’t seem to know where on Erwin’s body to look first.

  
Erwin glanced at the awkward press of Levi’s erection down the leg of his jeans.  “Yeah.”  He swallowed to clear some of the roughness from his throat.  “That was the plan.”

  
“Oh.   _Fuck_ ,” Levi breathed.

  
Erwin shifted and the heavy cotton sent a flicker of too-much through his pelvis.  He groaned.  Levi answered with a tiny, helpless moan and Erwin’s eyes were trapped by the shape Levi’s mouth made.  He tried to hang on to _why_ he was wearing nothing but the little apron Levi had given him for Christmas last year—and Erwin was now absolutely certain it had been a birthday gift to himself, poorly disguised—instead of the fact that Levi had bitten his lips swollen.  Instead of how good Levi’s cock looked pressed hard in his jeans.  

 

“Is—” Erwin blinked and shook his head.  “Is that okay?”

  
Levi looked distracted.  “What?”  He squirmed again and palmed himself.  “Oh.  What the fuck do you think?”

  
“Do you want me to wear the gloves?”  

  
Levi nodded.  His throat bobbed.  Erwin didn’t know if he would manage to clean the whole kitchen without breaking down, but damn was he going to try.

  
Levi didn’t look away.  Not while he kicked off his jeans, or when Erwin groaned and had to stop moping to palm himself for a few desperate moments, or when he removed his briefs and ran a thumb in lazy circles around the wet head of his cock and whimpered.  His eyelids fluttered, but he never let them close and he never stopped running his appreciative gaze over the lines of Erwin’s body in that pink apron over and over.

  
Erwin broke first.

  
He dropped the mop three quarters done cleaning.  It clattered to the floor.

  
“ _Levi_ ,” he said, quiet and nearly sobbing, hushed compared to the sharp sound of the mop hitting the tiles.  He was so hard he hurt and the sight Levi offered him was far too much.

  
Levi had pulled his feet up onto the counter and leaned back against the wall with his knees knocked wide, so gone in his slow pumping and soft gasps, he didn’t even fuss about having his bare ass on the counter.  A dark flush disappeared into the neckline of his teeshirt and his toes curled against the marble.

  
Levi just whimpered in response, lips pulling down in a matching sob.  His cock slipped in and out of his fist again, wet shine catching the fading light.

  
Erwin was across the kitchen before Levi could pump himself again.  He let himself drop to his knees this time.  The skirt of the apron flared around his thighs and his own pitiful erection had dampened the underside of it.  “Levi, can I have you?”  He leaned his cheek against Levi’s feet where they curled over the edge of the counter.

  
Levi buried wet hands in Erwin’s hair.  “Yes,” he whimpered. “Erwin, yes.  Stop asking such stupid questions.”

  
Erwin sighed when he kissed Levi’s feet, slipping his lips around tense toes, messy.

  
“Erwin,” Levi babbled again.  His fingers flexed in Erwin’s hair at the same time as his twitching hips, but he was thrusting into air.  “That fucking apron,” he choked.  “You have no right to look so good in something so fucking frilly.”  His head knocked against the wall behind him.

  
“Contrast, probably,” Erwin kissed into the soft skin of Levi’s foot.  He glanced up, eyes level with Levi’s balls, pulled high and tight, and had to squeeze his eyes shut and press his face against Levi’s shivering leg to ground himself.  “Levi, let me blow you.”

  
“Oh fuck.”

  
Erwin bit his calf and looked up.  Levi’s lips were slack.  “I want to blow you.”

  
“Christ, I heard you the first time,” Levi rasped. 

  
“Let me, please.”  Erwin nuzzled his calf.  “Levi, I want to.”

  
Levi closed his eyes.  “Erwin you’ve gotta stop that or I’ll come all over your face by accident.”

  
Erwin groaned, loud.  Levi’s eyes flew wide.  Erwin opened his mouth around another moan and tried to speak.

  
“Oh my god, don’t,” Levi whispered.

  
“Levi,” Erwin panted anyhow.  “I want you to.”

  
Levi’s face crumpled.  He closed his eyes and leaned back, looking like he was going to cry or come.  Maybe both.  “Jesus Christ, Erwin.”

  
Erwin swallowed a whine and tugged at his little body, bit at his thighs, until Levi sagged against the edge of the counter, half sitting on it, half collapsing back against it with his legs slung over Erwin’s shoulders.  “There,” he sighed and nosed at Levi’s inner thighs.   _Finally_.  “I haven’t done this often enough lately,” Erwin murmured between kisses.  He sucked hard at Levi’s soft skin and shuddered when Levi sobbed. 

  
“What are you talking about?” Levi heaved.  “We fuck all the time.”  His legs flexed against Erwin’s neck, tightening hard enough to make it hard for Erwin to breath for a moment, and Erwin lapped at his balls as a reward.  “We fuck too often given how damn old you are.”  Erwin hummed against him and Levi arched his back.  “ _Ah_ —” 

  
Erwin shook his head.  “Not like this.”  He buried his nose against Levi’s balls and licked a gentle stripe along his entrance.  Levi shoved back against his mouth with a violent shiver.  Erwin reached up to steady his hips and ran his tongue along him again.  “Not like this, _look_ at you.  God.  Fuck.  I want to devour you.”  He groaned, “ _Levi_.”

  
Levi cried quietly and squirmed, tried to rub his thighs together for friction, but his legs caught against Erwin’s neck again.  “Stop teasing me,” he said as softly as he cried out.  He looked down at Erwin, on his aching knees in a pink apron and so hard it was beginning to verge on sharp pain, and Levi’s eyes melted into warmth.

  
Erwin dripped onto the floor.  Levi gave him his teeshirt to kneel on.

  
Levi’s cock was slippery wet when Erwin rubbed his lips against the swollen head and dragged it across his cheek to leave a shiny streak on his skin that Levi’s eyes caught on, dark and hazy.  He watched Levi the whole time he worked his lips down the shaft, swallowing little bits of Levi while Levi swallowed his voice, choking on moans and whines that spiraled high and wavering.  And then Erwin’s nose was pressed to his belly and he sighed, closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Levi while Levi’s cock twitched in his throat.  He struggled to breath and Levi cried and cried above him, shivering in the circle of Erwin’s arms about his hips.  He curled forward to wrap his arms around Erwin’s head.

  
Erwin’s own hips jerked and he thought he’d made a small puddle beneath the pink of the apron.

  
“ _Move_ ,” Levi begged.  “Oh my god, Erwin, fucking move.  I can’t, I can’t— You look—”

  
Erwin groaned and pulled back, all the way off Levi, trailing a string of saliva and precum.  

  
“ _No_ ,” Levi sobbed and thrust after him, trying to follow the warm wet of Erwin’s mouth.  His face was damp.

  
Erwin thought he probably looked like he was crying as well.  He could feel his lips dragging down and his throat was tight as the bow of Levi’s back as he arched and rolled his hips helplessly.  

  
His knees ached as much as his cock, but all he could do was sigh with relief when he pressed forward again to bury Levi inside of his throat all the way down to his balls and curling, coarse hair.

  
Levi was shaking apart, hitching “ _Oh, oh, oh_ ,” as often as he took a breath within minutes.  Erwin’s own hips rolled and he’d wet the front of the apron by the time Levi stiffened against his tongue and tugged Erwin’s hair frantically.

  
Erwin pulled back and panted up at Levi with wide eyes.  “Please, Levi,” he tried to say.

  
Levi curled forward and cried, bit his lip and tried to thrust into his own fist, but he fumbled with shaking hands.

            [ _The minor fall,_ ]

             And then he tossed his head back and sobbed loud with relief.

            [ _the major lift._ ]

Levi’s hips jerked and Erwin closed his eyes against the way he looked tangled up in his own pleasure just in time to catch warm ropes of cum in his mouth, across his chin, clinging to his damp bangs.  “God, Levi,” Erwin breathed.

  
“Er-win,” Levi shivered.  “Oh my god.”

  
When Levi’s legs stopped shuddering against his neck, Erwin opened his eyes and rested his head against Levi’s thigh.  He tugged off the gloves, clumsy, and stroked himself under the apron until he hunched up and had to press his lips to Levi’s soft muscles to smother his voice when he came on the kitchen floor and Levi’s cum mixed with the tears on his face.  Levi moaned for him and shook as much as Erwin did through his orgasm, stroking his hair and cradling his head.

  
Levi slid off the counter and landed hard on his knees, winced and fell forward to collide with Erwin’s chest, knocking them both backwards.  He straddled Erwin and stared down with pupils so wide Erwin wondered how he could see.  He lay pliant and dazed under Levi with cum cooling everywhere.  Levi’s lips were still parted on a little “o” as he reached up and smeared himself across Erwin’s cheeks.

  
“Shit,” he said.  His eyes trailed down over Erwin’s apron-clad chest.  “Holy—Erwin.”

  
Erwin laughed.  His voice sounded funny to himself.

  
Levi frowned.  “Are you?”  He tilted his head.  His cheeks were flushed and it traveled down his chest, across his perfect little body.  Erwin could hardly stand it.  “What the hell, Erwin.”

  
Erwin sat up and buried his face in Levi’s hair while he wrapped Levi up in his arms. 

  
“Are you crying?”  Levi’s voice came muffled against Erwin’s neck.  “You’re getting cum in my hair.”

  
Erwin laughed again and a little sob burst out of his chest.  He shuddered and rubbed Levi’s own stickiness into his soft, soft hair.

  
Levi made a noise of disgust, but his fingers were clinging to Erwin’s back, shaky and sinking hard into his muscles.

  
Erwin squeezed his eyes shut and sucked a desperate breath.  Levi’s hair smelled like sunlight, bright against the lingering heaviness of cleaning supplies.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i haven't written explicit porn in years. god this felt like coming home. you know i started writing fic b/c i wasn't finding the smut i needed? lmao. 100000 wips later. 
> 
>  
> 
> have i mentioned just how much i love you all? i do. i adore you. take care of yourselves, babes.


	10. The Final Strike and Seasons Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer comes to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this got explicit.
> 
> I was going to make this all deep 'n flowery, but then I reread the description of the fic and thought, "Remember your roots, you little cretin." And I did. I really did. 
> 
> See end notes for ugly crying and flimsy promises.
> 
>  
> 
> Levi gets a friend, Erwin tosses a salad... basically. Eatin' well in the Smith-Ackerman Household.

 

On the first day of the new school year, Levi kissed Erwin awake, moving his lips against Erwin’s and nuzzling his face until Erwin inhaled sharply and then exhaled a groan that ruffled Levi’s bangs.

  
“I was gonna start breakfast,” Levi muttered when Erwin lifted up the covers to peek at Levi’s naked body, “but you were so warm.” He wrapped his chilly feet around Erwin’s calves.

  
“This is fine,” Erwin said and hitched Levi up until he lay draped over his chest before tugging him down for more slow kisses while Levi wound his fingers into Erwin’s hair. Erwin slid a hand between their hips to hold them both in his fist. “For luck,” he said, grinning lopsidedly. He could smell his own morning breath and wondered how Levi never wrinkled his nose at it.

  
Levi lifted a brow. “For luck. Of course.”

 

 

Levi had apparently picked his clothes out the night before. A pastel pink shirt and freshly pressed khakis. It was Erwin’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I thought you got rid of that shirt,” he said.

  
Levi looked away. “Decided it didn’t look that bad when you’ve got a tan. But you _have_ to wear an undershirt.” Erwin tried to pull him back to bed for another round of wet kisses, managing to melt Levi down to a heavy-lidded puddle of bitten-off sighs before Levi swatted his ass. “No way, Erwin. You’re going to be late.”

 

 

They ate breakfast in the garden like it was still mid-summer, though the morning was quiet without the scrappy cat and the creeping chill made Levi shiver. Erwin pulled him round to straddle his lap and rested his cheek against Levi’s collarbones, closing his eyes. “Will you miss me terribly?” he asked, smiling into Levi’s stolen shirt. He rubbed at Levi’s back to stop his shivers.

  
“Not as much as you’re gonna miss me, old man.” Levi nosed at Erwin’s hair.

  
“This is true,” Erwin said. He tiptoed his fingers up the bumps of Levi’s spine.

 

 

As it turned out, he nearly _was_ late for school since he couldn’t seem to stop kissing Levi at the door.

  
Levi huffed and rubbed his cheek against Erwin’s. “I’m gonna be here when you get back,” he grumbled. "Jesus." He nipped Erwin’s jaw. 

  
Erwin felt that lurch of guilt roll through his stomach, threatening to come up his throat, so he tried to drown out the taste of it with Levi’s mouth. Smokey and bitter; bacon and black tea. It nearly worked.

  
Levi pulled back and pushed him towards the door.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said with his fingers on the doorknob.

  
Levi put his hands on his hips. “Erwin,” he said. He was wearing a pair of boxers that were barely visible under Erwin’s threadbare shirt, the one Levi kept hidden at the bottom of his drawer next to an extra-large pair of woolen socks. Erwin had to try very hard not to reach for his rumpled hair.

  
“I love you.”

  
Levi rolled his eyes. “I know. Get your ass to work.”

 

“Okay, but when I get home, I’m eating yours.”

  
Levi’s lips parted. Ah,” he cleared his throat. “Of course. You’ll be hungry. Now _go_.”

 

  
Erwin kept the bob of Levi’s throat at the front of his memory to replay at lunch in various scenarios until Hanji asked why he was so flushed. It was better than acknowledging that he missed his students from last year. They moved on, leaving Erwin behind to futilely recall all their little quirks that had taken him months to unravel. He could glance at a desk and list who had sat there going back years. It was exactly what he’d signed up for, but so many goodbyes sure did carry a weight.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Somehow, throughout the course of the summer, only one place had banned them permanently. Which Erwin figured would have been a miracle if it hadn’t been the place with the best air-conditioning.

  
And when it did finally happen, Erwin couldn’t even say he was surprised. In fact, as the flashlight swung over their laps, he had a moment of déjà vu so clear that it took his remaining breath away. Except this time, he was the one rolling his hips and grinding desperately into the seat, shuddering as he huffed through stifled moans. When the light flickered to their faces, Erwin was pleased to note that Levi was flushed, with sweat beading at his temples, bitten-slick lips catching the light in a way that made Erwin lick at his own mouth, before a harassed voice groaned over the film, “Oh my god, _you_. _Why?_ ”

  
Erwin tried to speak, but the vibrator stole his voice and he feared a groan would come rumbling out of his chest if he opened his mouth, so he glanced desperately at Levi who didn’t look like he planned to give a single inch to the security guard.

  
Levi sat perched in the theatre chair, one hand still gripping Erwin’s thigh, the other clearly holding the control to the vibrator lodged in Erwin’s body. He had mercifully switched it to the lowest setting when the light first hit Erwin’s lap.  Erwin wasn’t sure how he managed to curl damp lips into such a disdainful snarl while his eyes looked precisely like those of a pampered cat getting the cream.

  
“Shh,” Levi said and gestured to the screen, blessedly not with the hand holding the remote. He raised his eyebrows and faced forward, like he was interested in the film. Erwin’s mouth dropped. God, the summer had given Levi a mellow confidence he hadn’t expected and it burned Erwin up. He tried to keep his surprised laugh quiet, but the toy pressed hard against his prostate when his muscles contracted and the laugh twisted into a moan, wrecked and loud enough that he blushed at himself, pressing his fingers over his mouth. Levi whipped round to stare at him, eyes dark, mouth falling open in shock. He promptly turned the toy off. Erwin closed his eyes and took a deep breath, unsure if he was relieved or disappointed, and then peeked at the guard with one eye still screwed shut.

  
The guard stared down at his own feet, eyebrows to his hairline, and pointed to the exit. His flashlight hung limp at his side.

  
Levi didn’t fight him this time, not when several of the audience members suddenly found them far more interesting than the film.

  
They were asked politely to not come back any time soon.

 

 

Levi drove them home through the hazy afternoon light, white-knuckled where he gripped the steering wheel and panting lightly. He was quiet otherwise, one hand gently kneading at Erwin’s thigh while he focused on the road. Erwin thought to ask if he was alright with the ban when they got home. Just now, though, his mind buzzed softly with arousal and the sun on his face felt too good to try speaking.

  
Levi beat him to it, in a voice so low Erwin leaned over the console to hear him better. “So, I guess you won’t be dragging me to those shitty movies any time soon. What a shame.”

  
Erwin smiled. “Did you do it on purpose?”

  
Levi reached to wrap his fingers around Erwin’s wrist, resting over his pulse. “No. But it was certainly a bonus.” He brought Erwin’s hand to his mouth. “Plus, if you rent them, I can blow you on the couch and then we both win.”

  
Erwin squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe.

  
“Gotcha,” Levi murmured and nipped his knuckles. He drove the rest of the way home with Erwin’s hand pressed to his cheek.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Summer still clung to the afternoons in September and Erwin was sweating lightly inside the pink shirt when he pulled back into their driveway that evening. He was greeted at the front door by a grunting yowl and a weight against his ankles.

  
Erwin dropped his messenger bag and knelt by the tabby. “Hello there,” he murmured, running a finger along the brand new collar the cat sported on his glossy neck. The cat purred and pawed at his legs, flexing claws getting stuck in Erwin’s pants. “Are you ours now?” Erwin asked the little thing as he detached his claws and set the cat free.

  
He half-expected to see Levi leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a “ _Don’t ask_ ,” ready on his lips, but the house was quiet except for the purring cat.

  
There was organic cat food on the counter that Erwin thought might be more expensive than the chicken they’d been buying. Next to it was a note that read, “Don’t ask.”

  
Erwin tucked the slip of paper into the new notepad he’d picked up on the way home for their grocery lists.

 

 

He found Levi in the garden, laying on the blanket with a beat-up book covering his face.

  
“The collar looks good,” Erwin said as he sank heavily down next to Levi on the blanket, rolling onto his stomach to peer at him. “Is it organic, too?”

  
Levi pushed the book down to his chest and shot Erwin a mild, squinting glare. “Hypoallergenic.”

  
Erwin’s laughter hitched when he caught sight of the livid scratches on Levi’s forearms.

  
“Oh,” Erwin said. He carefully lifted one of Levi’s limp arms and traced his lips over the uninjured strips of skin. “It is sore?”

  
Levi grunted. “I took him to the vet this morning,” he said, letting Erwin kiss the inside of his elbow. Erwin wondered if the upholstery of Levi's beat-to-shit car looked like his arms. “He handled that really well, actually. The bath didn’t go down as smooth though.” He snorted softly. Then he glanced at Erwin, eyes tight. “He wasn’t microchipped, you know.”

  
Erwin smiled. “Well, he was basically yours already.”

  
Levi grinned and quickly turned his head to hide how wide his smile was. “Yeah, he’s a little bastard.”

  
Erwin pressed his face into Levi’s neck. Summer clung to Levi’s skin, too, and he didn't blame it.

  
“He’s only one,” Levi murmured.

  
Erwin kissed his throat as gently as he could and ached. He pulled back to brush Levi’s hair back from his forehead and kissed him there, too.

  
“You don’t mind owning a cat?” Levi asked with his eyes closed. Erwin thought it was to block out an impossible rejection.

  
“Course I don’t.” He bit Levi’s nose. “I’m glad. You'll have some company.”  _I’m sorry, Levi_.  The shadowy Levi that ate at his heart tilted his head and asked, _"For what?"_

  
This Levi pinched him lightly on the waist. “Okay,” he said and opened wide, grateful eyes.

  
A breeze made the book on his chest rustle. Erwin glanced at it. _Competitive Debate: The Official Guide_. _Oh, Levi_.

  
“How was school?” Levi began to ask, but Erwin was melting.

  
“You’re reading that?” he said instead of answering, brushing Levi’s hair back again and again.

  
“Well, yeah. Sort of,” Levi scoffed. “Don’t wanna look like a total dipshit.”

  
“Levi.”

  
Levi’s eyes widened at his expression. “Erwin?”

  
“Let me take you to bed.” He cupped his hands under Levi’s head. Heads were so heavy, he thought, like Levi’s whole soul was packed into that fragile skull.

  
Levi’s mouth curled very slightly. “I did promise you dinner,” he purred.

 

 

Erwin closed the door the keep the cat out of the room while Levi stripped completely without ceremony and threw himself on the bed, face down.

  
“Tired?” Erwin asked, sighing when he peeled off that sweaty undershirt.

  
Levi looked back over his shoulder, hair mussed. Erwin tried to look at his face, but his eyes caught on the crease under his ass and the swell of his balls peeking out between his legs. Levi snorted and his ass wobbled. “Yeah, a little,” he said.

  
“What?” Erwin hoped he'd wobble like that again.

  
Levi buried his face in his arms and laughed, a real barking laugh. Erwin was distantly aware of tugging his pants off only because he hissed when his briefs slid over his cock.

  
“Do you even remember what you just asked?” came Levi’s muffled voice.

  
“Mhmm,” Erwin hummed, crawling onto the bed to fill his palms with Levi’s ass. He bent to rest his teeth against the rounded muscle. “You’re tired. Having a cat is like having a child,” he said knowingly.

  
Levi looked over his shoulder again, brows pulled together. “Not even close, Erwin. The little fucker tried to kill me in the tub.”

  
Erwin nosed at Levi’s balls, licking at the summer smell, pleased when they tightened in reaction. “He probably thought the same of you, to be fair. You’ll work it out over chicken dinners.” He made sure to purr the words against Levi’s delicate little sacs.

  
Levi stiffened and inhaled sharply. “Jesus, stop talking about the cat.”

  
Erwin smiled and kneaded his cheeks, dipping his thumbs between them before pulling them apart and licking a long wet stripe from Levi’s balls to his tailbone.

  
“Alright,” Erwin said. Levi squirmed when Erwin reached to grab a pillow to put under his hips. But then Erwin was on him again with hot licks and sloppy kisses until Levi looked over his shoulder with damp eyes and crease-marks on his face and rasped, “ _Erwin_.”

  
“Mmm?” Erwin kept running his tongue over his swollen, licked-out hole.

  
“Inside me.” Levi’s sides heaved. “Please.”

  
Erwin moaned loud enough that Levi pushed back against his mouth before he was able to fumble for lube and circle Levi’s fluttering hole with slick fingers.

  
“Not your fingers,” Levi whimpered, pressing his hips to the bed and then shoving back against Erwin’s hand.

  
“I know, babe.” Erwin rested his forehead in the small of Levi’s back while he slick up his insides and listened to Levi cry quietly.

  
“I thought about this a lot today,” Erwin said, taking himself in hand to tease Levi with his cock, rubbing his head against Levi's puffy ring of muscle. The feeling made him bite his lip and close his eyes. 

  
“Pervert,” Levi whispered. He sounded pleased.

  
The first, sucking push, just when Levi’s body closed around his head nearly did Erwin in and he had to shower Levi’s back with kisses to distract himself. Even then, he was sinking faster than he meant and rumbling a low cry. “Jesus fuck, you feel so _good_ ,” Erwin growled, trying to stop his hips from pumping desperately into Levi.

  
Levi wailed and fisted the covers.

  
He stilled when he could feel Levi’s slippery balls against his own. Levi lay with his face resting, exhausted, on the covers, panting quiet sounds.

  
“You okay?” Erwin asked, pressing his face to Levi’s neck and threading their fingers together with one hand.  The other he tucked up under Levi’s belly to feel his heavy breathing.

  
“’m good,” Levi slurred.

  
Erwin tried to hitch himself deeper and Levi arched his back with a gasp.  “Oh fuck,” he hissed.

  
Erwin ground his hips, pressing his palm hard up against Levi’s belly.

  
Levi managed something like a smile and shook his head, looking over his shoulder at Erwin. “Close,” he panted, open-mouthed. Then he took Erwin’s hand and pushed it further down along his stomach. “That’s where you are.”

  
“Oh fuck.” Erwin doubled up. Levi squeezed around him, eyes dark enough that Erwin knew it was intentional. “Oh shit, don’t do that.”

  
Levi pushed his stomach down into Erwin hand and squirmed, a moan slipping out of his damp mouth.  Erwin whimpered low, squeezing his eyes shut and shoving his face against Levi’s shoulder. “Don’t move.”

  
“Gonna come?” Levi teased.

  
“ _Yes_.”

  
“Oh shit,” Levi breathed. Erwin could still feel his heartbeat throbbing around his cock and he couldn't stop thinking of Levi’s hand pressing in against him from the outside, but Levi held utterly still. “You kinky fucker,” he said reverently.

  
Erwin huffed. “That’s not that kinky.”

  
“Can I try next time?” His voice was so, so low when Erwin was inside of him. Erwin imagined Levi’s little palm pressing all over his stomach while he fucked Erwin, trying to find where he was buried in Erwin’s body.

  
“Oh my god, don’t speak,” Erwin groaned, bucking his hips. He placed his teeth on Levi’s shoulder.

  
“The cat puked in my sneakers.”

  
Erwin reared back. “What the _fuck_.”

  
Levi laughed, body fluttering around Erwin. “Did it work?”

  
Erwin growled and snapped his hips and the cat wasn’t mentioned again, although Erwin thought Levi would beat the little thing at yowling. Levi was soft and pliant that evening, resting his cheek in Erwin’s palm when Erwin cradled his head to kiss him and stroked his other hand down his sides and stomach again and again. Erwin was reaching for his cock with Levi shook his head.

  
“Wait,” Levi huffed, wiggling unhappily. He pushed Erwin away and rolled onto his back, guiding Erwin back in with his heels to the small of Erwin's back. He arched his spine and sighed a long moan. “That’s better.” And then he was licking into Erwin mouth with soft little kisses and hitching him as close as they could manage, planting his feet and arching hard into Erwin.

  
Erwin was happy to hook Levi’s legs over his arms and bend to suck gently at his nipples, pushing into that heartbeat heat slowly until Levi cried out and then sighed and splattered Erwin’s chin. Levi seemed just as content to let Erwin keep mouthing at his sore, swollen nipples until Erwin’s own hips stuttered and he stilled with his hands pressed over where Levi had said he was buried, shivering and groaning.

 

 

“How _was_ school,” Levi asked when he was mostly clean and able to open his eyes. He propped his chin on Erwin’s chest, entire body moving up and down with Erwin’s breaths, having curled back up on the bed immediately after they’d wiped off.

  
Erwin smiled. “Same as every year. Hanji had condom balloons in their room.”

  
Levi snorted. “The fact that they haven’t been fired is a fucking inspiration.” Erwin’s laugh shook Levi’s frame. Levi traced a finger along his nose. “You miss them?” he asked.

  
“Who?” Erwin knew very well who.

  
Levi rolled his eyes. “Your kids,” he said.

  
Erwin smiled and tucked Levi down against his heart, just above where it hurt. “Yeah, same as every year.” He pressed his lips to Levi’s silky head.

  
Levi dragged his fingers gently through Erwin’s chest hair. “Good ones this year?”

  
“Always,” Erwin said.

  
“Did you miss me?”

  
“Always.” He ran his hand up and down Levi’s spine like he had the morning. “Old age is making you needy.”

  
Levi sputtered and tensed like he was going to fight it. Then his whole body went slack. “Well you would know, wouldn’t you.”

  
“It’s very flattering.”

  
“You’re pushing it.”

  
“I think we should have ice cream tonight,” Erwin said casually.

  
Levi raised his head to regard Erwin very gently. “You liked them more than usual, didn’t you? They won't be working now that school's started.”

  
Erwin shook his head. “I’m just trying to drag you down into flabby old age with me.”

  
"Liar." Levi tapped his nose. "I’m getting a large then. Of flavors you don’t like so you won’t steal it.”

  
Erwin squeezed him with both hands. “That’s fine.” Levi’s legs straddled his hips and if Erwin’s kneaded and rolled his ass, he could rock Levi’s pelvis against himself just right.

  
“Do you want dinner first?” Levi asked, ignoring Erwin’s flexing fingers.

  
“I could go for seconds.”

  
“You're terrible, Erwin Smith.” Levi darted forward to kiss him, hard. “Do the brats think you’re funny?”

  
“Hilarious.” He was too tired to get completely hard again, but Levi was stiffening and the motion felt soothing. “So funny.” Erwin rocked up into Levi and groaned slightly. “Mmm,” he rumbled. “Every year I get Most Funny.”

  
“You’re so full of bullshit,” Levi breathed, letting Erwin pushed and pull his body, bracing his hands on Erwin’s chest, squeezing playfully. “It’s going start coming out of your eyes.”

  
“Did the cat really puke in your shoes?”

  
Levi looked down at his own hardening cock and then at Erwin with a disgruntled expression. “Yeah, I had to chuck them.”

  
Erwin bounced Levi gently. “Gross.”

  
“Please stop talking about it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
There was a quiet knock on Erwin’s classroom door at the end of the first week. He'd nearly finished packing to go home. Hanji was having another barbecue that weekend, and he and Levi needed to go grocery shopping that afternoon for it. He set down his bag and called, "Come in."

  
“Mr. Smith?”

  
Erwin glanced up to see Armin’s timid face poking into his room. “Armin, come in.” Erwin didn’t bother to tamper his wide smile.

  
Armin stepped into the room and looked over his shoulder, gesturing to whoever was behind him. Eren stumbled in after him, followed by Mikasa. There was a scuffling sound and several more students pushed awkwardly in. Sasha and Kirschstein. Erwin tried to keep his eyebrows from shooting to his hairline.

  
Armin rubbed the back of his neck. “We were wondering when debate club was starting.”

  
Erwin swallowed, tightening his grip on the desk.

  
Out in the hall someone shouted “ _Oi!_ ” and then Ymir’s freckled face popped around the doorframe with her girlfriend in tow. Erwin was glad to see they'd survived the summer. “Thanks for waiting for us, assholes,” she said.

  
Armin blushed and looked at Erwin. “Mr. Smith?”  Eren looked a minute away from bursting. Mikasa reached out to wrap her hand around his wrist.

  
Erwin sucked a heavy breath. “The posters say October,” he said. “To give you all a chance to try out clubs.”

  
Armin flushed a darker shade of red. “We decided,” he said. “Can we start meeting earlier?”

  
Erwin swallowed. “Pardon,” he said, clearing his throat, which felt embarrassingly tight. “Why, though?”

  
Armin looked at his feet. "We miss your class," he mumbled.

  
Erwin pinched his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.

  
“Are you mad?” Armin asked quickly.

  
“What? No,” Erwin laughed. _I think I’m crying_. He laughed harder.  “I’ll find a room for next week,” he said. “If you want to start then.”

  
Eren finally burst. “Is Levi coming?” 

  
“Who the fuck is Levi?” Kirschstein growled at him.

  
“Mikasa’s martial arts trainer.”

  
“Oh,” Kirschstein breathed. “Yeah, is Levi coming?”

  
Erwin sat down at his desk and opened his bag for the packet of tissues Levi was always shoving into his pockets. “I’ll ask if he wants to.”

  
Armin smiled very wide, hiding it under floppy bangs.

  
“Do you like your students better this year?” Eren asked.

  
“I like you all equally,” Erwin said. Eren didn’t look the slightest bit appeased.

 

 

“You’re such a damn liar!” Levi huffed when Erwin, not at all teary, told him about it over dinner. “God, you love them, you big fucking sap.”

  
“Will you come? You don’t have to.”

  
Levi rolled his eyes. “Yeah I do. You’re a mess, Erwin.”

  
“Yeah, right.” Erwin looked at the satisfied cat in Levi’s lap. Levi stroked the cat's back and took a bite of his stirfry. The little bastard watched him expectantly. “Good thing you’re so tough.”

  
“You have no idea how hard it is to deny you anything,” Levi mumbled, looking away with a faint blush. “Give me some credit.”

  
“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin said.

  
Levi glanced up. “What’s with the face?"

  
"Thank you," Erwin said, wanting both to crawl under the table to take Levi into his mouth, cat be damned, and also to put his heavy head in Levi's hands and weep. 

   
"Jesus, Erwin." Levi’s wide eyes were fondly horrified. Erwin thought he had no idea of all the boxes in Erwin's heart and how many of them were full of himself.

 

 _“Isn’t it nice, wanting someone, old man?”_   The scales tipped towards weeping.

 

“I’m fucking you tonight,” Levi said firmly.

  
“Oh, definitely,” agreed Erwin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well then.
> 
> I really pulled out the sap for that.
> 
> If you made it to the end of this, holy moly thank you and I love you. I think this fic is essentially a wild documentation of my learning how to write/find my style (which I'm still doing) and coming to understand the snk characters (which... I'm still doing). Somehow I pulled 30k of porn out of my ass. Or Levi's ass. I just don't know. But I thoroughly enjoyed doing it and learned so much. My style has changed so much?? Again, who knows. Not me. Not Erwin. Erwin's getting pummeled by his tiny beautiful husband rn, so he's not thinking about much at all.
> 
> I'm going to try not to embarrass myself with my banshee yodeling, but fuck y'all.... fffffUCK. The eruris have been the nicest goddamn bunch of talented people I could have ever hoped to meet. Where have you been all my life? You guys have been nothing but supportive and encouraging and I can't even begin to express how grateful I am. You didn't have to swallow me into your vortex of old man love like the most accepting Blob ever, but you did. Thank. I'm not coming out now. I've got 40 wips and a box of tissues. For the tears... ...
> 
> [Zed](https://zedsdead1001.tumblr.com), jesus, darling. Thank you for taking a risk on me when I came crashing into your inbox asking to write fic for your art. I can't. You're gorgeous and talented and also an angel and I'm gross for you.
> 
> And also Angel, pretty sure you know who you are. I owe a whole damn lot of this fic to you. You kept me going, seriously. I hope you're doing well <3
> 
> OKAY CRYING OVER. ;;;;;
> 
> I have three (3) things I still want to write in this verse... give or take. One is straight pwp. Only Human except role reversal ft. panties. The other two are total bullshit. So there are my empty promises. I've got more where those came from if you like that kinda thing.
> 
> Thank you again. Be gentle with yourselves and I hope you go on to read a lot of soft porn in your time. Maybe write some?? Ohoho. Come join the crowd :)
> 
> FTR it was Ymir who used the phrase snugglepups originally. It was always her. I hardly even knew her when I started writing this, but I knew she'd use that phrase. Now I'm in love with her, it's a burden.

**Author's Note:**

> There’s no plot, guys. The plot is that they're horny and helplessly in love and Levi isn’t half as grumpy as he seems. That's it. I’m ten years late to this party, but I come bearing tissues and cavities for all.
> 
> Please be gentle with me. I'm fragile and can't stop weeping over this ship. I have no idea what I'm doing.


End file.
